Nolan Gasser
Encyclopedia
Nolan Ira Gasser is an American composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

, and musicologist. He is the Chief Musicologist for Pandora Media, Inc. and the architect of the Music Genome Project
Music Genome Project
The Music Genome Project was first conceived by Will Glaser and Tim Westergren in late 1999. In January 2000, they joined forces with Jon Kraft to found Pandora Media to bring their idea to market...

, the proprietary musical analysis system that underlies the popular Internet radio
Internet radio
Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...

 service. His classical compositions have been performed by orchestras, chamber ensembles, and soloists around the world, in such venues as Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

, the Kennedy Center, and the Rose Bowl
Rose Bowl (stadium)
The Rose Bowl is an outdoor athletic stadium in Pasadena, California, U.S., in Los Angeles County. The stadium is the site of the annual college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl, held on New Year's Day. In 1982, it became the home field of the UCLA Bruins college football team of the Pac-12...

. Current composition projects include an opera, The Secret Garden, commissioned by San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...

 (for 2013), an orchestral overture to inaugurate the Green Music Center (Weill Hall) by the Santa Rosa Symphony in September 2012, and a musical, Benny and Joon, in partnership with MGM On Stage. Recently, the Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop
Marin Alsop
Marin Alsop is an American conductor and violinist. She is the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.In 2012, Alsop will replace Yan Pascal Tortelier as principal conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra....

 recorded his narrated symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

 Cosmic Reflection, to be released forthcoming as a DVD.

Gasser is also the Artistic Director of Classical Archives
Classical Archives
Classical Archives is an online digital music store focused exclusively on classical music. Originally opening as the Classical MIDI Archives in 1994 primarily as a repository for free MIDI sequences of classical music works, in August, 2000 the site incorporated as Classical Archives, LLC, and...

, a leading online classical musical service. He received his Ph.D. in Musicology from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, where he has been Adjunct Professor in Medieval-Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 music history. He frequently performs as well as lectures around the United States – on music, and the relationship between music and science; a forthcoming book on the latter subject is being handled by famed literary agent John Brockman
John Brockman (literary agent)
John Brockman is a literary agent and author specializing in scientific literature. He founded the Edge Foundation, an organization aimed to bring together people working at the edge of a broad range of scientific and technical fields. Referencing C.P...

.

Biography

Gasser began playing piano at age 4, and was composing by age 8. His professional career began at age 11, when he became the weekend pianist at the newly built La Mirada Mall – for which he credits his eclectic musical identity, being fluent in pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, and classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 styles.

Gasser received a Bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 from California State University, Northridge
California State University, Northridge
California State University, Northridge is a public university in Northridge, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, California, United States....

 (1988), where he studied composition with Aurelio de la Vega, and piano with Charles Fierro; this was followed by a two-year sojourn in Paris, where he studied privately with Betsy Jolas
Betsy Jolas
Betsy Jolas is a French composer.Betsy Jolas was born in Paris. Resident in the United States from 1940 until 1946, she studied composition with Paul Boepple and piano with Helen Schnabel. On her return to France she continued her studies with Simone Plé-Caussade, Darius Milhaud and Olivier...

 and at Fontainebleau
Fontainebleau
Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau...

 with Jolas, Gilbert Amy
Gilbert Amy
Gilbert Amy is a French composer and conductor. In 1954 he entered the Conservatoire de Paris where he was taught and influenced by Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud and studied piano with Yvonne Loriod and fugue with Simone Plé-Caussade. His first compositions date from 1955...

, and Tristan Murail
Tristan Murail
Tristan Murail is a French composer. His father, Gérard Murail, is a poet and his mother, Marie-Thérèse Barrois, a journalist. One of his brothers, Lorris Murail, and his younger sister Elvire Murail, aka Moka, also write, and his younger sister Marie-Aude Murail is a French children's writer...

. While in Paris, he began a fascination with Renaissance music (especially the music of Josquin des Prez
Josquin Des Prez
Josquin des Prez [Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez] , often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance...

), spawning an interest in musicology.

Upon returning to the States, he earned a Masters
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

 in composition at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 (1991), studying with Todd Brief and Menachem Zur; and a Ph.D. in musicology from Stanford University (2001), with his dissertation, "The Marian Motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...

 Cycles of the Gaffurius Codices: A Musical and Liturgico-Devotional Study".

In March 2000, Gasser was hired by Savage Beast Technologies (today Pandora Media, Inc.), where he helped flesh out the Music Genome Project
Music Genome Project
The Music Genome Project was first conceived by Will Glaser and Tim Westergren in late 1999. In January 2000, they joined forces with Jon Kraft to found Pandora Media to bring their idea to market...

. He is the Chief Musicologist at Pandora, and is the architect of all five Music Genomes (Pop/Rock, Jazz, Hip-hop/Electronica; World Music; Classical); he also helped design the means of analysis and training by which the company continues to this day, as the hugely successful Pandora Radio service.

In April 2003, Gasser became the Artistic Director of the Classical Archives
Classical Archives
Classical Archives is an online digital music store focused exclusively on classical music. Originally opening as the Classical MIDI Archives in 1994 primarily as a repository for free MIDI sequences of classical music works, in August, 2000 the site incorporated as Classical Archives, LLC, and...

 website, which in May 2009 re-launched as a streaming and download service with classical content from most labels. Gasser designed for the site a proprietary database to properly categorize and display classical recordings, and runs the editorial operation – including conducting interviews with classical artists and composers such as Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming is an American soprano specializing in opera and lieder. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice.Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano repertoires. She has sung roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also...

, Hilary Hahn
Hilary Hahn
Hilary Hahn is an American violinist.Hahn was born in Lexington, Virginia. Beginning her studies when she was three years old at Baltimore's Peabody Institute, she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age ten, and in 1991, made her major orchestral debut with the...

, Alan Gilbert
Alan Gilbert
Alan David Gilbert AO, was a historian and academic administrator who was until June 2010 the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester....

, Hélène Grimaud
Hélène Grimaud
Hélène Grimaud is a French pianist.-Biography:Grimaud was born in Aix-en-Provence, France. Although her autobiography Variations Sauvages suggests a...

, Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian-Icelandic conductor and pianist. Since 1972 he has been a citizen of Iceland, his wife Þórunn's country of birth. Since 1978, because of his many obligations in Europe, he and his family have resided in Meggen, near Lucerne in Switzerland...

, Jeremy Denk
Jeremy Denk
Jeremy Denk is an American classical pianist. He has performed with numerous orchestras and presented world premieres by Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, Kevin Puts, and Ned Rorem. He frequently performs with violinists Joshua Bell and Soovin Kim. He has recorded several chamber works as well as a solo...

, Daniel Hope
Daniel Hope
Daniel Hope is an English television and film actor. He graduated from Mountview Theatre School in 1999 and has been in numerous plays and television dramas, the most notable of which include Only Fools and Horses, EastEnders and Casualty...

, David Lang
David Lang (composer)
David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion.-Biography:...

, Eric Whitacre
Eric Whitacre
Eric Whitacre is an American composer, conductor and lecturer. He is one of the most popular and performed composers of his generation. In 2008, the all-Whitacre choral CD Cloudburst became an international best-seller, topping the classical charts and earning a Grammy nomination...

, and John Corigliano
John Corigliano
John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...

.

Gasser is active as a pianist and bandleader, especially in jazz and popular styles - including with the San Francisco Jazz Quartet; he occasionally teaches musicology, including as an Adjunct Professor at Stanford; he also gives periodical lectures – such as at the 2010 Carmel Authors and Ideas Festival
Carmel Authors and Ideas Festival
The Carmel Authors and Ideas Festival takes place the last weekend of September in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Held annually since 2007, it attracts many of the world's top authors and thinkers, including Pulitzer Prize winners...

. and at a recent joint meeting of the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

 and the United States Department of Health and Human Services
United States Department of Health and Human Services
The United States Department of Health and Human Services is a Cabinet department of the United States government with the goal of protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America"...

 in Washington D.C., regarding arts education. He was a visiting professor at UC Santa Barbara in February 2011. Gasser is in the early stages of a book on the inter-relationship between music and science, being handled by famed literary agents John Brockman
John Brockman (literary agent)
John Brockman is a literary agent and author specializing in scientific literature. He founded the Edge Foundation, an organization aimed to bring together people working at the edge of a broad range of scientific and technical fields. Referencing C.P...

 and Katinka Matson.

He lives in Petaluma, California
Petaluma, California
Petaluma is a city in Sonoma County, California, in the United States. In the 2010 Census the population was 57,941.Located in Petaluma is the Rancho Petaluma Adobe, a National Historic Landmark. It was built beginning in 1836 by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, then Commandant of the San...

, with his wife Lynn (since 1994) and their two children, Camille (born 1995) and Preston (born 2001).

Composition

Gasser's shift in focus to musicology, beginning in 1991, led to an extended disruption in his compositional output, with only a handful of works written before his graduation from Stanford in 2001. Since 2003, however, composition has become a principal focus of his career.

Among his substantial works include American Festivals – a four-movement work with poetry by Robert Trent Jones, Jr.
Robert Trent Jones, Jr.
Robert Trent "Bobby" Jones, Jr. is a noted golf course architect. He is the son of legendary golf course designer Robert Trent Jones and the brother of golf course designer Rees Jones....

; each movement is dedicated to a distinct and quintessential American holiday: "Oration on July 4th" (2004), "Black Suite Blues" (for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; 2005); "Memorial Day" (2006); and "Thanksgiving" (2007). The work has been performed – in part and whole – numerous times by several orchestras (e.g., Charleston, Memphis, Arkansas, and Oakland East Bay Symphonies
Oakland East Bay Symphony
The Oakland East Bay Symphony is a leading orchestra based in Oakland, California. The current music director and conductor is Michael Morgan, who has held the position since September 1990. The Paramount Theatre has been the home of the Symphony since the 1995. Bryan Nies has been Assistant...

), including a complete performance at the 2008 IMG Festival del sole (Napa Valley, CA.).

Gasser's most ambitious composition project in recent years has been a pair of works written in conjunction with NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope (formerly GLAST) – launched June 8, 2008. The first work, the GLAST Prelude, for brass quintet (2007), was recorded by the American Brass Quintet
American Brass Quintet
When the American Brass Quintet gave its first public performance on December 11, 1960, brass chamber music was still relatively unknown to concert audiences...

, and presented at a pre-launch party in Cocoa Beach, the live premiere took place on November 2, 2009 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and the work was released on the ABQ's 50th Anniversary CD on Summit Records.

The same Kennedy Center concert also saw the premiere of the second Fermi-related work, the narrated symphony Cosmic Reflection, with narration by Pierre Schwob and physicist Lawrence Krauss that tells the full history of the Universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...

. The work was recorded by the Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop
Marin Alsop
Marin Alsop is an American conductor and violinist. She is the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.In 2012, Alsop will replace Yan Pascal Tortelier as principal conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra....

, and will be subsequently released as a full-feature DVD.

Among other serious works include his World Cello for Cello and Orchestra (2008), which was premiered by cellist Maya Beiser
Maya Beiser
Maya Beiser is an American cellist who lives in New York City. She has an international career as a performer and recording artist. She was raised on a kibbutz in Israel by her French mother and Argentine father, and graduated from Yale University School of Music...

 and the Oakland East Bay Symphony under Michael Morgan
Michael Morgan (conductor)
Michael Morgan is an American conductor. He is currently music director of the Oakland East Bay Symphony and the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, and artistic director of in Walnut Creek, California.-Biography:...

, along with three "world" soloists: Jiebing Chen
Jiebing Chen
Jiebing Chen is a Chinese musician based in the United States specializing in the erhu .Born in Shanghai, China, Chen went to the United States in 1989 to study at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she received an M.A...

, erhu
Erhu
The erhu is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, which may also be called a "southern fiddle", and sometimes known in the Western world as the "Chinese violin" or a "Chinese two-stringed fiddle". It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles...

; Aruna Narayan, sarangi
Sarangi
The Sārangī is a bowed, short-necked string instrument of India which is originated from Rajasthani folk instruments. It plays an important role in India's Hindustani classical music tradition...

; and Bassam Saba, oud
Oud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...

. His 3 Jazz Preludes (2007) were performed at Carnegie Hall by pianist Kimball Gallagher in March 2008. His String Quartet No.2 was recently completed and will be premiered in 2012.

Future works include an opera, The Secret Garden (based on the novel by Francis Hodgson Burnett, commissioned by San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...

 (for 2013), a musical Benny and Joon (with lyricist Mindi Dickstein), in partnership with MGM On Stage and H2H Productions, and an overture to inaugurate the new Green Music Center (Weill Hall) by the Santa Rosa Symphony, scheduled September 30, 2012.

Discography and media


External links

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