Bio
Composer Nicolas Chuaqui has been praised for his "sharp and precise imagery" (The Utah Review) and recognized as a composer of depth and imagination. Most recently, he was winner of the Khorikos ORTUS International New Music Competition and winner of the Bernard Rogers Prize from the Eastman School of Music for his orchestral work Cantus.
Equally at home in acoustic and electroacoustic settings, Chuaqui composes music for a broad range of performers, all of which is influenced by his background as a performer and his fascination with musical memory, time, and impression. He has worked with the Oregon Symphony, Ensemble Signal, The Crossing, New Voices Opera, pianist Jason Hardink, and many others. His work has appeared at many venues including the NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival, American Composers' Orchestra's EarShot Program, and the SEAMUS National Conference.
In addition to composition, Chuaqui takes an active role in music as both a performer and educator. He has performed newly-written compositions as conductor, pianist, and vocalist, and, in 2023, he founded Become New Music, a New York-based ensemble dedicated to currently-living composers.
Chuaqui is a dedicated teacher of composition, theory, and technology, and has served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Wyoming and a teaching assistant at the Eastman School of Music. He holds a doctorate in composition from Eastman, where his primary teachers were Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, David Liptak, and Robert Morris, and he also holds degrees from Indiana University and Dartmouth College.
