Natalie Nicolas - Composer

Natalie Nicolas’ musical passion was nurtured throughout her upbringing.... She began piano lessons at age 7 and by 17, had not only completed all AMEB grades, but had written many short pieces, and decided she craved a career in composition. She currently runs her own piano teaching business, lectures HSC students in composition, and sings in various bands and ensembles, gigging around Sydney CBD and the outer suburbs.

From Debussy to Hans Zimmer, India Arie to Skrillex, Natalie’s style is not one formed of being narrow-minded of musical taste. She has always exposed herself to a multitude of styles, which is made evident via the ensembles she has written for spanning over her 4 years spent studying a Bachelor of Music in Composition, at the prestigious Sydney Conservatorium of Music. To date, her work includes pieces for chamber orchestra, chamber piano ensemble, four-part acapella vocal group, string quartet, a ten-piece string/piano/brass/percussion ensemble, and many more.

In October of 2013, she worked with Australia’s most prominent string quartet, the Australian String Quartet, and their composer-in-residence the renowned Andrew Ford. Natalie’s piece “Turning in the Widening Gyre” based on W.B Yeats’ “The Second Coming”, was workshopped in Adelaide after winning a place in the National Composer’s Forum, and further premiered at the ethereal Elder Hall in Adelaide CBD.

Growing up in the suburbs of Sydney, Natalie attended high school at Normanhurst’s Loreto College. The school was conducive with the exploration of her musical talents, having her perform at their annual ‘Loreto Day’ concerts and finally, electing her to conduct a choir of 150 girls performing a self-arranged piece, at an annual concert held initially at Town Hall in Sydney CBD, and then at the State Sports Centre in Homebush. Following her competitive election, she spent the next three months arranging, rehearsing and preparing the girls for the piece that won first place of eight competing choirs. This same year, she also had the privelage of performing in a four-part acapella group for the audience of 13,000 people— an opportunity gained over 100 other auditioning applicants.

Being raised in a multi-cultural family, Natalie has been exposed to a wide variety of ethnic music. Her Lebanese/Mauritian background bared her to wonderful rhythmic and tamboural world of Arabic music, which in the future would influence pieces of hers. This is ultimately illustrated in her work “Albi”, written in loving memory of her grandmother. The piece written in five sections, outlines the 5 stages of grieving. With Arabic modal melodies underlying the Classical instrumental ensemble, the piece is mesmerizing and poignant. This work sparked a certain compositional drive in her, and became a catalyst for her most technically and conceptually challenging piece to date; “Rhapsodie L’Insanite” for solo piano. A piece that revolves around chaotic erraticism and the cyclic nature of the unstable mind, it has become the Piece de Resistance of her compositional journey, demonstrating her outstanding knowledge of her instrument, and challenging performers to a degree upon which they have yet to experience. It was premiered in Sydney by the exceptionally talented Viet-Anh Nguyen in 2014 at a concert series “Splash”, which features works by upcoming Australian composers, and further performed in Viet’s final recital alongside Liszt’s “Apres Une Lecture Du Dante”.

Admiring both the acoustic and ever-expanding electroacoustic scope of music, Natalie developed a penchant for writing for visual media, established via her extensive abilities writing with stimuli. She has since re-scored a short film “Wall Boy”, and experimented heavily with blending the electronic and acoustic musical fields in an attempt to embody a wholesome coexistence between the fields.

Having studied under insurmountably influential composers Michael Smetanin, Matthew Hindson and film-music composer Mary Finsterer (who has worked on feature films such as “Die Hard”), she has developed her skills in a multitude of stylistic genres. Natalie completed her Bachelor of Music Composition and her undergraduate Honours degree in 2014, submitting a dissertation titled “Compositional Techniques in Popular Music and the Subconscious; The Psychological Manipulation Influencing Non-Musical Personalities”, which explicated her research and interpretive study into the power of composers in controlling emotions, and the deductive reactions of the mass audience that is the modern world.

Beginning in 2016, she has been selected to participate in the National Women in Composition Program by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and awarded a scholarship to study her Masters at said Sydney University. As part of this program, she embarks upon the opportunity writing for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the Goldner String Quartet, Claire Edwardes and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, with her first concert hall premiere at the Sydney Opera House in December of her piece "Joyeux Noel".