Short Bio

Photo by Heidi Solander

Nico Muhly, born in 1981, is an American composer who writes orchestral music, works for the stage, choral music, chamber music and sacred music. He’s received commissions from The Metropolitan Opera: Two Boys (2011), and Marnie (2018), both co-productions with English National Opera; Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and Wigmore Hall; his choral music, both sacred and secular, has been performed by The Tallis Scholars and the choirs of Westminster Abbey, Southwark Cathedral, King’s College Cambridge, Clare College, Cambridge, St John’s College Cambridge, Magdalen College, Oxford and Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, where he is composer-in-residence. He has been featured at the Barbican, King’s Place and the Philharmonie de Paris as composer, conductor, pianist, and curator. An avid collaborator, he has worked with choreographers Benjamin Millepied at the Paris Opéra Ballet, Justin Peck and Kyle Abraham at New York City Ballet, and Mark Morris; artists Sufjan Stevens, The National, Teitur, Anohni, James Blake and Paul Simon. His work for screen includes scores for The Reader (2008) and Kill Your Darlings (2013), the BBC’s adaptation of Howards End (2017) and Pachinko for Apple TV+ (2022-2024).

Among his concerti are works for violin and strings, (Shrink, for Pekka Kuusisto), organ (Register, for James McVinnie), viola (for Nadia Sirota), two pianos (In Certain Circles, for Katia and Marielle Labèque), piano (for Alexandre Tharaud), violin (for Renaud Capuçon), a Concerto Grosso (flute, trombone, cello & percussion, for the Los Angeles Philharmonic), piano (Sounding, for Adam Tendler) and trumpet (Doom Painting for Tine Thing Helseth); his vocal collaborators include Iestyn Davies, Renée Fleming, Anthony Roth Costanzo and Nicholas Phan. Recent large-scale solo works include The Street, a collaboration with librettist Alice Goodman for harpist Parker Ramsay, and The Bell Études, for pianist Conor Hanick.  He has worked with visual artists Maira Kalman, Yu Hong, and Oliver Beer, and has created site-reactive works for the National Gallery, London, the Guggenheim Museum’s Asian Art Initiative at the Venice Biennale, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and written articles for the Guardian, the New York Times, and the London Review of Books. Recordings of his works have been released by Decca and Nonesuch, and he is part of the artist-run record label Bedroom Community, which released his first two albums, Speaks Volumes (2006) and Mothertongue (2008). 

His name is pronounced [‘ni: ko] [‘mju:li].

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Because there is often Some Confusion about how my name is pronounced, I offer you four paths through this journey:

Me saying my name:

A nice English gentleman:

Yet another nice English gentleman:

An extremely nice American gentlewoman & longtime collaboratrix: