Biography
Nicholas Alexander Norton was born in 1986 in Santa Monica, California. He began playing the saxophone at the age of eight and guitar at ten after moving to Ventura County, and has continually performed with bands since then. In 2004 he enrolled in a double degree program at the University of California, San Diego to study political theory and music composition and performance, where he was awarded honors with distinction in composition as well as the Stewart Prize for outstanding creative work. His private teachers at UCSD included Harvey Sollberger, Chinary Ung, Lei Liang, and Rand Steiger. He also studied guitar with Colin McAllister and Randy Pile. Upon graduation, at the age of 21 in 2008, he was awarded a scholarship by the European American Musical Alliance to study composition and theory with Michel Merlet, Sofia Gubaidulina, Philip Lasser, and others at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, France.Nick has written music that explores and exploits "grey areas," such as those found between popular and high-art music, periodicity and unpredictability, and freedom of expression and strict mathematical parameters. His pieces have been performed across the United States and in Europe. Throughout his career as a composer Nick has remained active as a performer with The Honest Iago Music and Arts Collective, The Ionian Singers, The UCSD Guitar Ensemble, Karate Snow Machine, and on his own, written for American Music Press Magazine and SanDiegoPunk.com, and DJ'd for KSDT Radio in San Diego. He now lives in London, where he is studying composition with Robert Keeley and George Benjamin and theory with Arnold Whittall at King's College, and has helped to found The Stranded Ensemble there. He is also studying guitar at the Royal Academy of Music, with Michael Lewin.
Nick is a member of the American Composers Forum, the Featured Artists Coalition, and the Royal Philharmonic Society, and is represented by ASCAP.
To download a curriculum vitae, clickhere.
