Nicolas Collins

Nicolas Collins studied composition with Alvin Lucier at Wesleyan University, worked for several years with David Tudor, and has collaborated with numerous soloists and ensembles worldwide. His music has been recorded on Lovely Music, Trace Elements Records, Nonesuch and Periplum, among others. From 1992-95 he was visiting Artistic Director of Stichting STEIM (Amsterdam), and in 1996-97 a DAAD composer-in-residence in Berlin. Since 1997 he has been editor-in-chief of the Leonardo Music Journal. In September 1999, he joined the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

“In Still Lives a modified CD player slowly scratches through ten measures of recorded music by Giuseppe Guami (1540-1611). As the CD steps from one skipping loop to the next, the continuous counterpoint of the canzona is suspended in wobbly harmonic blocks. The sense of suspension is heightened by the live trumpet which, mimicking the timbre of the early instruments, anticipates and retards phrases from the Guami score. The text, from Vladimir Nabokov's memoirs, addresses memory and mortality. This recording was released in 1999 on the Periplum CD Sound Without Picture.”