Faculty
Charles Nichols
Charles Nichols earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied violin with Charles Castleman and Daniel Stepner, chamber music with the Cleveland Quartet, composition with Samuel Adler and Warren Benson, and electronic music with Allan Schindler. He later received a Master of Music degree in Composition from the Yale University School of Music, where he studied composition with Martin Bresnick, Anthony Davis, Jacob Druckman, and Lukas Foss, and computer music with Jonathan Berger. Recently, he completed a Ph.D. in Computer Music Theory and Acoustics from the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, where he studied composition with Richard Felciano, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, and Jean-Claude Risset, and computer music with Chris Chafe and Julius Smith.
His compositions, including acoustic and electroacoustic pieces, have been presented at the Pan Music Festival in Seoul, Korea, The Electric Rainbow Coalition at Dartmouth College, Technosonics III at the University of Virginia, the Australian Flute Festival in South Melbourne, Australia, the Society of Composers Inc. Student National Conference at Bowling Green State University, the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival at the University of Florida, the NOW Music Festival in San Francisco, CA, the Festival Internacional de Musica Electroacustica "Primavera en la Havana" in Havana, Cuba, and June in Buffalo at State University of New York at Buffalo.
His computer music research, including the analysis and resynthesis of sound, and the engineering of haptic musical controller hardware and software, has been presented at International Computer Music Conferences in Gsteborg, Sweden, Berlin, Germany, and Aarhus, Denmark, the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression in Dublin, Ireland, the Conference on Digital Audio Effects in Limerick, Ireland, the International Symposium of Musical Acoustics in Perugia, Italy, Forum IRCAM in Paris, France, and the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States National Conference in Baton Rouge, LA. His papers have been published in the academic journals Organised Sound, the Journal of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and Leonardo Music Journal, and articles about his research have appeared in the popular publications Electronic Musician, Scientific American, Strad, CPU, La Macchina del Tempo, and New Scientist.
Nichols performs interactive computer music on electric and MIDI violins, as well as contemporary music for soprano and violin with his wife, Beryl Lee Heuermann, in their duo, Painted Carp. In addition to performing his own compositions at new music festivals, he has performed works written for his duo, at the College Music Society Workshop on Women and Music Technology at Agnes Scott College, the International New Music Festival at the University of San Diego, the Mixed Messages Festival at Context Studios in New York, and new music concerts at the University of Montana, Stanford University, Yale University, and State University of New York at Stony Brook.
He has taught music theory at Yale University, and composition, interactive and algorithmic computer music, digital synthesis and signal processing, computer assisted musical analysis, and music theory at Stanford University. While at Yale, he served as a Research Associate at the Center for Studies in Music Technology (CSMT), working on wavelet analysis and resynthesis of historical recordings, and as a Research Assistant at Haskins Laboratories, studying musical perception and expressive performance. While at Stanford, he served as the Interim Technical Director, and later as the Associate Technical Director, of CCRMA, organizing concerts, lectures, and demonstration sessions, planning educational workshops, and publishing technical reports. He currently teaches acoustic and electroacoustic composition, as an Assistant Professor of Composition and Music Technology at the Department of Music of the University of Montana.
Contact Dr. Nichols at charles.nichols@umontana.edu or visit his website at www.charlesnichols.com