Nicholas Bentz (b. 1994 - Charleston, SC) is a composer, violinist, and multimedia artist whose work is drawn to remote fringes and recesses of experience. In his work he seeks to render intimately personal spaces imbued with an individual sense of storytelling and narrative. His art centers around the blurring, juxtaposition, and amalgamation of stylistic idioms into singular sonic statements.
Nicholas's music has been performed by leading artists including International Contemporary Ensemble, yMusic, Ensemble Dal Niente, Hub New Music, HOCKET, Sandbox Percussion, Telegraph Quartet, and Ligament Duo. Increasingly at home with the orchestra, his symphonic works have been played by the Philadelphia Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Charleston Symphony, Suzhou Symphony Orchestra, and Jacksonville Symphony, and he is currently a Composer Fellow with the Chelsea Symphony. Nicholas’s works have been featured at Lincoln Center, Musikverein Wien, Kennedy Center, Cabrillo Festival, Kimmel Center, and Copland House. His first opera, Having Guests for Dinner, with libretto by Robert Feng, was commissioned by /kor/ productions and premiered by Hillman Opera, receiving additional stagings with New Opera West, Hartford Opera Theater, and Central Washington University. Nicholas is an avid collaborator across artistic mediums, with multimedia works exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai, LA Shorts International Film Festival, Chengdu Museum, KuBe Art Center, Columbia Circle, and venues across the US and China. His digital installation Million Adversarial Faces was launched into space by Weina Star Technology Company and is currently in orbit around Earth.
His work has received top honors from the Tribeca New Music Festival, the American Prize, the iSING International Young Artists Festival, Boston New Music Initiative, and American Composer’s Orchestra. Nicholas has held residencies with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Suncoast Composer Fellowship. Current projects include co-commissions from Ensemble Intercontemporain and Wigmore Hall, works for Longleash Trio and Ekmeles, multimedia projects with filmmaker Alex Atienza and Flannau Duo, and SALMO, a sci-fi tragic opera with libretto by Robert Feng.
As a violinist, Nicholas has soloed with the Charleston Symphony, Thornton EDGE, and the Pacific Philharmonic. He has also performed with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. An avid interpreter of new music, Nicholas has commissioned and premiered a number of pieces ranging from chamber and solo pieces to concerti and multimedia works.
Nicholas is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University, pursuing a doctorate in Music and Multimedia Composition under Anthony Cheung. He received a master’s degree in composition from the University of Southern California. Nicholas also earned a master's in violin from the Peabody Conservatory, receiving bachelor's degrees in violin and composition from Peabody under the tutelage of Herbert Greenberg and Kevin Puts. Nicholas's mentors include Wang Lu, Eric Nathan, Butch Rovan, Nina Young, Sean Friar, Donald Crockett, Ted Hearne, Andrew Norman, Felipe Lara, and Yiorgos Vassilandonakis; his violin teachers include Lina Bahn, Yuriy Bekker, and Diana Cohen.
