Biography

Coming from a musical family, composer Nathan Kind Currier is son of composer Marilyn Currier (1931) and brother of composer Sebastian Currier

Sebastian Currier

Sebastian Currier is an American composer of music for chamber groups and orchestras. He was also a professor of music at Columbia University from 1999 to 2007.-Life:...

 (1959).

His principal teachers were David Diamond

David Diamond

David Diamond is the name of:* David Diamond , American composer* David Diamond * David Diamond , American screenwriter* David Diamond, frontman and songwriter with Canadian band The Kings...

, Joseph Schwantner

Joseph Schwantner

Joseph C. Schwantner is a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer and educator and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded the 1970 Charles Ives Prize....

, Bernard Rands

Bernard Rands

Bernard Rands is a composer of contemporary classical music.Rands studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy.He held residencies...

, Stephen Albert

Stephen Albert

Stephen Albert was an American composer.-Biography:Born in New York City, Albert began his musical training on the piano, French horn, and trumpet as a youngster. He first studied composition at the age of 15 with Elie Siegmeister, and enrolled two years later at the Eastman School of Music, where...

 and Frederic Rzewski

Frederic Rzewski

Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...

. He studied at the Juilliard School

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

, where he received the Doctorate in 1989.
During the 2007-2008 academic year, he served as a visiting faculty member at the McIntire Department of Music at the University of Virginia

University of Virginia

The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

.

Awards

• 1999 Academy Award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters
  The American Academy of Arts and Letters
  The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 250-member honor society; its goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Located in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan in New York, it shares Audubon Terrace, its Beaux Arts campus on...
  
  , a lifetime achievement award
• 1995 Rome Prize
  Rome Prize
  The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists and to 15 scholars The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists...
  
   for Composition from the American Academy in Rome
  American Academy in Rome
  The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...
  
  
• 2008 International Sackler Prize
  Sackler Prize
  The Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize is a $40,000 prize in the disciplines of either physics or chemistry awarded by Tel Aviv University each year for young scientists who have made outstanding and fundamental contributions in their fields. It was created through the generosity of...
  
   for Music Composition
• 2008-2009 Fellowship at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
  Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
  The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities aims to develop the civic, cultural, and intellectual life of the Commonwealth of Virginia by creating learning opportunities for all Virginians....
  
  .

Interrupted Oratorio Premiere

Currier has been involved in some controversy concerning the abruptly terminated premiere of his environmental oratorio Gaian Variations

Gaian Variations

Gaian Variations is an environmental oratorio by classical composer Nathan Currier, an abruptly terminated premiere of which took place at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, New York on April 21, 2004.The work focuses on the Gaia Theory of James Lovelock...

, which took place at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, on April 21, 2004. The work focuses on Gaia Theory, a scientific theory of James Lovelock

James Lovelock

James Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling...

, and the composer spent years writing the large work for chorus, orchestra and soloists. During the premiere the Brooklyn Philharmonic suddenly stopped, claiming that it was headed into overtime. Currier, who now gives talks on climate change for Al Gore’s The Climate Project

The Climate Project

The Climate Project was founded by Nobel laureate Al Gore in June 2006 and is a non-profit organizationdedicated to calling attention to what it believes are global problems associated with climate change...

, had felt that the urgency of climate change gave the topic such importance that he used personal funds to prevent cancellation of the concert when neither the Brooklyn Philharmonic nor another organization, Earth Day Network, raised the money needed. The music critic of the New York Times said that the composer “seemed unable to end the work,” claimed that the texts were “pseudoscientific,” and harshly criticized the composition. Currier was given a pro bono lawyer through Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts

Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts

Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts is both a generic term for legal service organizations located throughout the United States and the proper name of the organization in New York City. Founded in 1969, that organization is the oldest VLA in the country.-Programs:Chicago-based lawyers for the Creative...

shortly after the performance, but the Executive Vice President and Director of the Hess Oil Company, J. Barclay Collins II, also a client of the same firm and Chairman of the Board of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, complained to the law firm, and Currier lost legal representation. On the New York Times Arts Beat Blog, oil executive Collins (who retired in January 2010 from the petroleum company) also was quoted as saying that Currier’s lawsuit is “totally without merit.” Since 2008 Currier has been represented by Alex T. Roshuk, and the case was filed in Supreme Court of the State of New York Kings County in 2009.

External links

• http://www.presser.com/Composers/info.cfm?Name=NATHANCURRIER
• http://nathankindcurrier.com
• www.gaianvariations.com
• "Nathan Currier", University of Virginia
• http://www.sacklercompositionprize.uconn.edu/