Darmok & Jalad

His inspirations span science, literature, and everyday life—from reef-saving coral research and Da Vinci’s failed flying machines to his morning coffee and favorite episodes of Star Trek. As a composer, educator, and artistic leader, Nick works from the conviction that music can spark connection and welcome people into inclusive communities.

A Rhodes Scholar, Nick has received commissions from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Tacoma, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, New College Choir, arx duo, Sandbox Percussion, PRISM Quartet, and others. His works have been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra Winds, Artosphere Festival Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, and many other ensembles and artists. His forays into film music contributed to an AudioFile Earphones Award for This is Not My Hat, Scholastic’s film and audiobook adaptation of the Caldecott Medal-winning story by Jon Klassen.

Nick expands the reach of new music through imaginative, cross-disciplinary collaborations. In 2024, he joined forces with actor John de Lancie (Star Trek, Breaking Bad) for two programs exploring art and inspiration, featuring Nick’s Darmok & Jalad alongside a world premiere based on text by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. The pair will debut another project in 2026. Nick co-founded Nodality Music, a nonprofit forging direct connections between artists, audiences, and the wider world, which is currently leading a commissioning and educational initiative on music and climate justice. Nick’s children’s opera Anansi and the Great Light, produced by the Curtis Family Concert Series, pioneered a community-driven creative process highlighted by PBS WHYY. He also launched Creative Expression Through Music, a partnership between the Curtis Institute of Music and the Penn Memory Center, engaging patients and caregivers in the co-creation of new works.

As director of the Curtis New Music Ensemble, Nick champions cutting-edge contemporary classical music through the highest level of artistry. He has also served as an artistic consultant for the Tanglewood Music Center, advising on repertoire curation and creative direction for its historic Festival of Contemporary Music.

Nick previously co-founded and directed the Oxford Laptop Orchestra (OxLOrk), England’s first laptop orchestra. Powered by hemispherical speakers and custom software instruments, the ensemble brought together musicians and coders in live performance. In its inaugural year, the ensemble gave five concerts, including collaborations with the Ashmolean Museum and London’s Barbican Centre.

Nick earned degrees in composition from Princeton University (B.A., M.F.A.), the University of Oxford (M.Phil, with distinction), Yale School of Music (M.M.), and Curtis Institute of Music (Post-Baccalaureate Diploma, Community Artist Fellowship).

Nick serves as provost and dean of the conservatory at Curtis Institute of Music, where he holds the Rock Chair in Composition Studies. He is a composition faculty member and program coordinator at the Tanglewood Music Center, holding the Renee Longy Master Teacher Chair. He teaches at the highSCORE Festival and was a founding faculty member for the Emerging Composers Intensive at Hidden Valley Music Seminars.

Winner of both the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Avery Fisher Prize, David Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber music collaborator.

Mr. Shifrin has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia and Minnesota orchestras and the Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Detroit, Fort Worth, Hawaii and Phoenix symphonies, among many others in the United States; as well as with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan. He has also received critical acclaim as a recitalist, appearing at such venues as Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, and the 92nd Street Y in New York City; and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

An accomplished chamber musician, he has collaborated with the Guarneri, Tokyo, Emerson, Orion, Dover and Miró String Quartets; as well as Wynton Marsalis, André Watts, Emanuel Ax, and André Previn. An artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1989, Mr. Shifrin served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004. He also served as artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest from 1981 through 2020, and is currently artistic director of the Phoenix Chamber Music Festival.

Mr. Shifrin was the recipient of a Solo Recitalists’ Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the 2016 Concert Artists Guild Virtuoso Award. He was given an honorary membership by the International Clarinet Association in 2014 in recognition of lifetime achievement, and, at the outset of his career, he won the top prizes at both the Munich and the Geneva International Competitions. In recent years he received the Distinguished Alumni Awards from the Interlochen Center for the Arts and the Music Academy of the West, and a Cultural Leadership Citation from Yale University. He was recognized with the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award at the 2018 Chamber Music America Conference and in 2019 was awarded the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music.

Mr. Shifrin performs on a Backun “Lumière” cocobolo wood clarinet made by Morrie Backun and Légère premium synthetic reeds. He is represented by CM Artists New York.

All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Ms. Gleason is the Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow.

Ms. Gleason has been recognized for her diverse performance abilities as a conductor, vocal soloist, and chamber musician. Interdisciplinary collaboration and community building are at the core of her music-making. She is curious about the most effective ways to disrupt the stasis and comfort of the modern concert hall; to examine how the disciplines of music research, performance, and perception can grow more aware of each other, and how artists across disciplines, activists, and researchers can most effectively collaborate. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance from the Chicago College of Performing Arts and Master of Music degrees in conducting and vocal arts from the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

An alumna of several notable training programs, including the Aspen Music Festival and the Conducting Institute at Oxford, Ms. Gleason was one of eight inaugural vocal fellows at the Crested Butte Music Festival. Her output as a vocal soloist ranges from concert appearances, including alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah and Mozart’s Requiem, multiple operatic roles, and an extensive song and chamber music repertoire. She also served as the alto artist in residence at the University of Chicago for two years, where she was a regularly featured soloist. As a conductor, Ms. Gleason has led notable ensembles such as The Orchestra Now and the Eastern Festival Orchestra.

While obtaining her degrees at Bard College Conservatory of Music, studying under James Bagwell and Stephanie Blythe respectively, she served as the assistant conductor of the Bard Symphonic Chorus, conductor of the Bard Opera Workshop, and the assistant conductor of the Bard Graduate Vocal Arts Program’s main stage production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, in collaboration with The Orchestra Now. In July 2022, Ms. Gleason served as the music director for the world premiere of the opera The Final Veil during its residency at The Cell Theater in New York City.

Alongside mezzo-soprano Joanne Evans, she is a co-founder of Loam, an artistic partnership presenting semi-immersive musical works. Current projects include co-conceiving, producing, and performing as a featured singer in The Fragile Femme, collaborating with director George Miller and choreographer Matilda Sakamoto.

Ms. Gleason was named a 2021 conducting fellow at the Eastern Music Festival, where she studied with Gerard Schwarz, received the 2021 Emerging Conductor Award from The Gena Branscombe Project, and was named a National Finalist for The American Prize in Conducting.