Behind this is also the goal of benefiting our community and educating new and young listeners in the worth of fresh new music.
Nashville Composer Collective was born in late the summer of 2012 in homes, classrooms, and coffee shops, with eventually as many as 27 members meeting to encourage composition of new works and provide a venue for their performances. Our members include studio players, career artists, music faculty, and many other supporters in various roles. They’re involved throughout the US and abroad.
NCC’s inaugural concert was on October 27, 2013. Twenty-six concerts since then have been given, showcasing twenty-four composers employing orchestras of various sizes, from chamber groups to 29 players. Over 80 world premiers have been performed.
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The latest Nashville Composer Collective concert was at Woodmont Christian Church on February 25, 2024. The event featured new works by Epling, Arrucci, Sheridan, Krenz, and Darnall. Attendees remarked that the “creativity of original compositions were skillfully performed by talented musicians”.
Kristen is a media composer, Sundance Fellow and a classical pianist with a master of music in theory and composition. In addition to scoring many film projects, she has her own songs placed in several films and has written music for a Los Angeles-based theater improv company. Her website is kristenbaum.com
Roger is a Muse-Seeker who defies pigeon-holing. He toots trombone, croaks vocally, and writes more words and notes than he can keep track of with either organic or silicon-based storage facilities. His two sojourns in Nashville followed desperate escapes from college in Iowa (1966-1971) and Disneyland (1985-2010). He swears he will never leave again.
Woodwind specialist, composer, and educator Evan Cobb moved to Nashville after completing his Masters Degree in 2008. His CD of eight original compositions for jazz quintet, Falling Up, charted in the Jazz Week Top 50 for five weeks and continues to receive extensive airplay on satellite radio. His appearances as a performer include the Nashville Symphony, Nashville Jazz Orchestra, The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker, Aretha Franklin, JD Souther, Cage the Elephant, and Steve Wariner.
John has worked with Hubert Laws, Peter Erskine, Hank Dutt, Bill Preucil, Mark Feldman, Chris Thile, and Ohio Players.
Joseph is an award-winning composer, musician and producer whose work includes original underscore for Oscar nominated, Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper. Earlier that year, he composed the music for the award-winning feature documentary, Kidnapped for Christ. Joseph’s score to Judges won best soundtrack at the Miami International Science Fictions Film Festival (2016). He is also known for his work as a music editor in more than 50 feature films, including Sicario, The Revenant, Book of Eli, Prisoners, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Dirty Dancing. Joseph is an honors graduate of film composition at Berklee College of Music. His primary instrument is trumpet with a dual emphasis in classical and jazz performance. In 2015, Joseph received a BMI Film Music Award for his score on American Sniper.
Cole was born and raised in Macon, GA, before moving to Nashville and receiving a Music Business degree from Belmont University. His many musical pursuits include singing, songwriting, piano, producing and DJing electronic dance music, and film scoring.
Quentin moved to Nashville in 2011 to study classical double bass performance at Belmont University. He has a passion for both the double bass and the electric bass in all styles and genres.
A native of Chattanooga, TN, Stephen Lamb started playing piano and French horn at the age of nine, moving on to arranging, orchestrating, and composing in his teens. He moved to Nashville in 2006 to work in the music industry full time, and divides his time between writing string arrangements and orchestrations for clients in a wide range of styles, engraving and editing orchestrations for various publishers, and working as a copyist. Recent notable projects include music prep and additional orchestration for Michael McDonald’s 2013 orchestral tour and music prep and lead transcriber for the Broadway musical “Hands on a Hardbody” with Trey Anastasio (frontman of Phish) and Don Hart. His website is stephenlambmusic.com.
Jeff won the silver medal for the U.S. in the Coupe Mondiale international accordion championship, and has performed with the Nashville, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and West Palm Beach Orchestras. He performed in and music directed Ring of Fire, the music of Johnny Cash, on Broadway, played keyboards with the touring shows of Wicked and Jersey Boys, and has accompanied Brenda Lee, Pavarotti, Blake Shelton, Dolly Parton, Lee Greenwood, and Donna Summer. He currently teaches music at Belmont University in Nashville, instructs singers for cruise ship production shows, and plays on many recordings, including the Grammy-winning Songs from the Neighborhood: The music of Mister Rogers and his own albums Walkin’ the Winter Wonderland and A Spy in Tortuga, both available at his website.
Andre Madatian is a guitarist and film composer with a Bachelor of Music degree in Film Scoring with a minor in Contemporary Conducting from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Andre composes for television and currently has over 40 placements on 9 major national television networks including NBC, CBS Sports, Oprah Winfrey Network, Bravo, TLC, and more. Aside from television, Andre also composes orchestral and chamber works with credits including a premier with the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kalistos Chamber Orchestra. His website is www.andremadatian.com
Carl is a composer/orchestrator/conductor whose career has included 40 years of making music with orchestras, choirs, instrumental ensembles and solo artists; many of them international. His website is carlmarsh.com.
Cellist
Ben Rice is a multidisciplinary artist expressing his work through musical composition, guitar performance, free improvisation, painting, and poetry. He received his M.M. in Jazz Studies from Indiana University after acquiring a B.M. in Music Education from Murray State University and currently lives in Nashville where he performs regularly with his own groups as well as The Music City Big Band, Hey Listen!, and The Freedom Coalition.
Mark Volker holds degrees from The University of Chicago, The University of Cincinnati, and Ithaca College. His compositions have been performed and recorded internationally including performances by the Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players, eighth blackbird, the Boston Brass, the Kiev Philharmonic, the Orquesta de Baja California, and many other notable ensembles. In addition to his composing work, Mark is an accomplished classical guitarist, often performing with New York City Opera flutist John McMurtery. Mark currently serves as Coordinator of Composition and Associate Professor of Music at the Belmont University School of Music in Nashville, TN.
R. Aaron Walters is a Nashville-Based composer and multi-instrumentalist. Aaron’s music is often an amalgamation of many idioms from his various musical pathways such as audio production, drum set, piano, jazz, commercial music (progressive rock, indie, electronic, folk, etc.), Western concert music, scoring, and music for dance. You can find his most recent large-scale composition and associated academic paper on his Bandcamp page (R. Aaron Walters).
