Nicolas Gilbert » Biography

Montréal, Québec, 1979

Nicolas Gilbert

Born in 1979, Nicolas Gilbert studied composition and analysis at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal with composers Michel Gonneville and Serge Provost, and also received training in mandarin Chinese at Nankai University (Tianjin, China), and in Russian at St-Petersburg State University (Russia).

His catalogue comprises about 20 chamber, vocal and orchestral works that have been performed in a number of Canadian cities as well as in the US, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Serbia-Montenegro, Kosovo, Estonia, Russia and China. He has received several grants since 2000, from various arts councils in Québec and Canada as well as from the Fonds Québécois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture. In 2003, he was finalist in the Lepo Sumera International Composition Competition and was selected to participate in the 21^st Century Young Composers Project (Chicago). He also received prizes for two in the SOCAN young composers competition.

Gilbert has completed commissions for the Trio Fibonacci, the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal, the Quasar saxophone quartet, the Société Codes d’accès, cellist Benjamin Carat, pianist Kadri-Ann Sumera, and soprano Janice Jackson. His works have also been performed by groups such as the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Kovalis Duo, the Ensemble Alizé, and the Boehm Flute Quartet, among others. Forthcoming projects include commissions for the Kaida Trio (Amsterdam), Continuum Contemporary Music (Toronto), clarinettist Thomas Piercy (New York) and Bradyworks (Montreal).

Festival performances include the biennial Musiques en Scène festival (Lyon, 2004), the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival (2004), the Prishtina New Music Festival (2004), ICE Fest 2004 (Chicago), the Estonian Music Days (Tallinn, 2003), the Milano Oltro Festival (2003), the Venice Biennial (2002), and BizArt Festival (Shanghai, 2002).

Nicolas Gilbert is currently resident composer at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur in Montreal, and is completing a doctoral degree in composition at McGill University under the supervision of John Rea. Since 2002, he has been president of the Société Codes d’accès, a non-profit organization founded in 1989 and dedicated to the promotion of contemporary music. He recently entered into agreements with the British publisher Edition HH, and some of his earlier works were published by Éditions Jobert (Paris) and Éditions BIM (Vuarmarens, Switzerland).

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