Nathaniel Stookey, musical saw

First commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony at age 17, Nathaniel Stookey has gone on to collaborate with many of the world’s great orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, Toronto Symphony, Hallé Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony and the Sinfonieorchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunks (NDR), among many others.

In 1993, upon graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Mr. Stookey was awarded the first Hallé Orchestra Composition Fellowship, serving as resident composer under Kent Nagano from 1993 to 1996 and producing a wide range of works including the gamelan-inspired Tame Me and Colliding with Chris, which was a (London)Times Critic’s Choice in 1995. In 2000, having returned to the United States, Mr. Stookey received a three-year New Residencies Award from Meet The Composer to serve as composer-in-residence with the North Carolina Symphony and The Ciompi Quartet. That partnership drew national press attention with over 60 performances of five new and three existing works, including Big Bang for the opening of Meymandi Hall, Wide As Skies for the centennial of the first manned flight and Out of the Everywhere.

In 2006 the San Francisco Symphony commissioned, premiered and recorded The Composer Is Dead, a sinister guide to the orchestra with narration by Lemony Snicket. According to BBC commentator Norman Lebrecht, Mr. Stookey’s The Composer is Dead is one of the five most performed classical works of the 21st century, worldwide.

In addition to works for conventional ensembles, Mr. Stookey has continued to attract new audiences with music that challenges the established boundaries of classical music. In 2007 Junkestra, for an orchestra of objects scavenged at the San Francisco dump, drew thousands of listeners to warehouses, public squares and YouTube before being taken up by the San Francisco Symphony and other classical presenters. Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields called the work "gorgeous music […] delicate yet blunt, like a battle scene by Fabergé.” That same year, Mr. Stookey contributed original music for string quintet to The Mars Volta’s Grammy-winning album The Bedlam in Goliath.

Mr. Stookey is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and Duke University. His principal teachers were Peter Scott Lewis, Donald Erb, Andrew Imbrie, Cindy Cox, George Benjamin, Stephen Jaffe and Scott Lindroth. Concurrently with his orchestral residencies, he served on the faculties of the University of Sheffield (U.K.) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where, from 1998 to 2003, he was artistic director and host of Composers-in-Context. Commercial recordings include Nathaniel Stookey: Music for Strings (1992–2002) by The Ciompi Quartet and the strings of the North Carolina Symphony; Fling by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (part of the live anthology "San Francisco Premieres"); The Composer is Dead by the San Francisco Symphony, a New York Times bestseller; and Junkestra by members of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. Nathaniel Stookey’s music is published by Associated Music Publishers.