The Nationwide Youth Orchestra of Canada (NYO Canada) and the SOCAN Basis not too long ago introduced the appointment of Nicholas Denton Protsack because the 2025 Rising Composer in Residence.
A cellist and composer, the position will likely be one thing of a homecoming for Protsack, who carried out and toured with NYO Canada in 2011 as an adolescent, and because it seems, caught the primary spark of his ardour for composing.
NYO Canada’s CEO Christie Grey mentioned in an announcement, “We’re excited to have Nicholas be part of the NYO Canada fold once more on this new capability. His improvement from participant musician to commissioned composer is the proper reflection of our function of selling Canada’s musical expertise by their inventive careers.”
Nicholas Denton Protsack: Composer-Cellist
A local of Kelowna, BC, Nicholas Denton Protsack earned each Bachelor’s and Grasp’s levels from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and not too long ago accomplished his PhD on the Victoria College of Wellington in New Zealand.
The award-winning composer and cellist’s work is ecologically impressed, and sometimes options notated in addition to recorded media, and experimental improvisation. His compositions have been carried out in North America, Europe, and in New Zealand. Commissioned works embody items for New Zealand’s Stroma Ensemble, Toronto Summer time Music, and American Prize-winning Ensemble for These Occasions. In 2023, he received each first and second prizes within the SOCAN Basis Younger Composers Awards, and in 2021, took residence a BMI Basis Scholar Composer Award for a bit for cello and digital media which he composed, carried out and recorded.
As a musician, Nicholas tends to work throughout the subject of chamber music, and he’s a founding member of Moth Quartet in New Zealand, and Canadian-based teams Branchroot Ensemble and Sounds Like Issues. He has additionally carried out as a soloist with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra. He’s the founder and inventive director of Whatnot Information, an impartial music label.
Q&A
When did you resolve to turn into a composer? Was it all the time a part of your intentions in terms of music?
Though I started my musical journey with cello and piano classes, composing was all the time one thing I partook in alongside my research. It started as a interest, however by the point I used to be midway by my undergrad, I spotted it had turn into a somewhat all-consuming interest. After placing in some severe thought, I concluded that I couldn’t think about a profession in music with out composing taking a entrance seat.
What impression did taking part in with the NYOC have in your early profession?
My first residency with NYO Canada really performed a serious position in growing my curiosity in composition. Throughout that summer season (it was 2011), I used to be uncovered to many new works of music, musical views, and new details about the opposite devices of the orchestra. Apparently, each time I used to be uncovered to one thing new from a school member or peer, my first thought was normally about how I may apply that concept to my very own, authentic music.
It’s humorous reflecting on this and questioning why I didn’t decide to being a composer once I was nonetheless in my teenagers!
One other essential takeaway from the expertise was after all the friendships and connections I made with my friends — lots of which have continued to at the present time. As an illustration, in 2021, I co-founded the ClassicalValley Chamber Magic Pageant within the Okanagan Valley with Cameron Crozman, who I met throughout my second yr with NYO Canada.
How would possibly the expertise (of being a former NYOC member) affect the way you compose for the ensemble?
I feel it has undoubtedly given me some insider information in regards to the capabilities of the orchestra. Writing for a typical youth orchestra requires a good quantity of strategic pondering, because the inexperience of the gamers can have an effect on their capacity to execute extra complicated musical concepts.
NYO Canada, nevertheless, is an uncharacteristically robust youth orchestra, as its members typically go on to be a few of Canada’s prime skilled musicians. Moreover, the programming typically contains among the most difficult normal orchestral repertoire on the market — repertoire that requires quite a lot of private observe. So the same ethos is commonly utilized to the commissioned work.
It’s an actual privilege to put in writing one thing I do know will obtain such detailed and dedicated consideration from such a proficient group of younger artists.
Your work is described as being ecologically impressed. How does that affect the music you write?
It is a barely troublesome query to briefly summarize. There are various methods during which my work creatively attracts upon features of the pure world; I really simply accomplished a dissertation on this very matter!
Talking usually, nevertheless, there’s a complete world of creativity that exists past merely mimicking sounds from nature: melodic contour and concord can be utilized to mimic the shapes and hues of landscapes, scientific information from the pure world will be simply mapped onto musical notation, subject recordings and even real-life sounds or supplies straight from nature will be integrated into musical practices. The chances are limitless, actually.
The underside line of this for me, nevertheless, is that I view many components of music as being essentially ecological, and even many components of ecology as essentially musical; accordingly, the objective of my language as an artist has typically been to intensify these options in order that anybody can understand and expertise them.
What are you able to inform us in regards to the piece the NYOC will premiere this summer season?
With out giving all the things away, it’s a work that will likely be impressed by atmospheric phenomena, the night time sky, and what will be discovered within the mysterious, liminal atmosphere between earth and what lies past.
I see this as a metaphor for the numerous methods during which human pondering has wanted to adapt and attempt in direction of new and unexplored territory as expertise, AI, and communication have begun to quickly develop in scope.
Paradoxically, I additionally see the subject material of the night time sky as touching upon an historic sense of marvel that people have all the time possessed about who we’re and what lies past our world. In some ways I see this as a unifying function that shines by in instances of uncertainty; whereas each place on earth has its personal stars and atmospheric traits, there’ll all the time be at the least some shared options regardless of the place you go.
NYOC 2025
The Nationwide Youth Orchestra of Canada Chamberfest takes place from June 15 to 29, adopted by the Orchestral Institute from June 30 to July 17 this summer season. After that, they hit the street, and audiences will have the ability to hear Nicholas Denton Protsack’s commissioned work, together with different repertoire, on their 2025 Tour, taking the orchestra from Toronto to Victoria from July 18 to August 3.
- Discover out extra about NYO Canada [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.
