Nicholas Frances Chase (Nebeil Mahayni; 1966), is an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

performer The performing arts are The arts, arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which involve the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art ob ...

, and

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

. Chase received a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in German Area Studies from

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...

in 1993 and studied music composition at the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...

(CalArts) with Stephen Mosko,

Morton Subotnick Morton Subotnick (born April 14, 1933) is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his 1967 composition '' Silver Apples of the Moon'', the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch. He was one of the fo ...

Bunita Marcus Bunita Marcus (born May 5, 1952) is an American composer. Bunita met Morton Feldman in 1976, beginning a long association that lasted until his death in 1987. For seven years they were inseparable. Feldman and Marcus composed side by side, shari ...

, and

Mary Jane Leach Mary Jane Leach (born 1949) is an American composer based in New York City. She has been a member of the Downtown Ensemble, composer in residence at Sankt Peter, Köln, and has recordings on XI, New World Records, and Lovely Music.Leach, Mary Jane ...

, receiving his

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

in 2000. At CalArts he studied

Hindustani Classical Music Hindustani classical music is the Indian classical music, classical music of the Indian subcontinent's northern regions. It may also be called North Indian classical music or ''Uttar Bhartiya shastriya sangeet''. The term ''shastriya sangeet'' ...

with

Rajeev Taranath Rajeev Taranath (17 October 1932 – 11 June 2024) was an Indian classical musician who played the sarod. Taranath was a disciple of Ali Akbar Khan. Life and career Rajeev Taranath was born in Bangalore on 17 October 1932. He received his init ...

and Arabic Classical Music with Dr. Ziad Bunni. His compositional style has referenced popular music forms such as

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time ( ) and often ...

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

ambient Ambient or ambiance or ambience may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Ambiancé'', an unreleased experimental film * ''Ambient'' (novel), a novel by Jack Womack Music and sound * Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgr ...

, and

noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical sound. Noise music include ...

, and made use of interactive

signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing ''signals'', such as audio signal processing, sound, image processing, images, Scalar potential, potential fields, Seismic tomograph ...

and electronic sound material with acoustic instrumentation (

electroacoustic music Electroacoustic music is a Music genre, genre of Western art music in which composers use recording technology and audio signal processing to manipulate the timbres of Acoustics, acoustic sounds in the creation of pieces of music. It originated a ...

). He has written original music for various ensembles including the

California EAR Unit The California EAR Unit was an American chamber ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. The group was founded in March 1981 in Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles, California. The original members of the EAR Unit w ...

, the

Long Beach Opera Long Beach Opera is a Southern California opera company serving the greater Los Angeles and Orange County metroplex. Founded in 1979, it is the oldest continually running opera company in the L.A. area. In June 2019 LBO presented the world premiere ...

, and the Philadelphia Classical Symphony. In 2024 Chase published a 219 page book about free improvisation, ''Passage of Desire: Improvisation and the Human Journey'', posthumously co-authored with

Susan Allen Susan Allen (born March 27, 1963) is an American politician and former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represented District 62B, a southside district encompa ...

Performances

Chase has performed using a laptop and DJ turntables and is known to integrate video projection into performances. In 2008 he began performing his own compositions for solo piano, giving concerts in Europe and the US.

Visual work

Chase has directed

short films A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

, usually with a musical element. In 2008 he created video projections for an event affiliated with the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

. With a background in illustration and design, he has created musical scores that have strong graphical elements and have been recognized as works of visual art. In 2023 Chase published ''Petunia is a Very Busy Cat'', a 54-page illustrated story.

Awards

In 2000, the same year he received his M.F.A., Chase was awarded CalArts' President's Alumni Achievement Award. He was nominated for the Alpert Award in Music in 2003. In 2011 Chase received a Composer Fellowship from Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, the inaugural year of the Composer Fellow program.

Works

*''e1>3ktr=Δ'' (also known as ''Elektra'', 2000) opera for alto singer, flute, DJ, video projectionist *''Sp!t'' (2000) for flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, DJ *''Tw!tch'' (2000) for flute, violin, contrabass *''Rugosa Rose'' (2001) for solo violin *''OPUS'' (2002) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, DJ *''22: Taker of the Total Chance'' (2003) for 2 soprano singers, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, 2 pianos *''Woad for Indigo'' (2004) for solo piano *''11 Ideas'' (also known as ''Dalì's Egg'', 2005-2013) opera for 2 narrators, film, piano, DJ, video projection *''Seventh Sense'' (2005) for solo contrabass with live electronics *''Ouistitis'' (2007) for viola and cello *''Considering Light'' (2008) for flute soloist,

melodica The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usu ...

, violin, cello, piano,

kettle drums Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

toy piano The toy piano, also known as the ( in German), is a small piano-like musical instrument. Most modern toy pianos use round metal rods, as opposed to strings in a regular piano, to produce sound. The U.S. Library of Congress recognizes the toy pia ...

*''Ngoma Lungdundu (Voice That Thunders)'' (2008) 4-channel pre-recorded media and

video projection A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image onto a projection screen using a lens system. Video projectors use a very bright ultra-high-performance lamp (a special mercury arc lamp ...

*''Songs of the Thirsty Sword'' (2008) for solo piano with 4-channel live electronics and

*''Blue Sky Over Buchenwald'' (2008)

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

sound track *''Gin Blossoms & Broccoli Boutonnières'' (2011) for solo flute with live electronics *''Bhajan'' (also known as ''Bhajan I-IV'' 2017) for solo violin and live electronics *''Voluptuous'' (2012) for solo piano and optional live electronics *''Saida'' (2013) for solo piano *''Hai•ku'' (2018) ''under

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

1=xx_√=electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

Performances

Visual work

Awards

Works

Discography

References

External links