Nolan Hildebrand

Nolan Hildebrand is a composer, improviser, researcher, and sound artist currently based in Toronto, Canada. His musical journey which began with playing drums to his favorite metal and math-rock albums has grown to encompass composition in classical ensembles and electroacoustic music, and performance in an experimental solo noise project dubbed BLACK GALAXIE. Nolan’s music often explores aspects of improvisation/interpretation, kinetic energy, noise, and density.

As a performer, Nolan has played at the Cluster Music Festival and the Winnipeg New Music Festival Pop Up Concerts with the University of Manitoba’s Xperimental Improv Ensemble, and NUMUS’ 2021-22 season (Waterloo, Ontario), ExitPoints #26 (online electroacoustic concerts), and the 4th Edmonton NoiseFest (virtual) as BLACK GALAXIE. Nolan has had opportunities to work with a wide range of world-renowned artists including the ECM+ Ensemble, XelmYa Ensemble, Luca Cori, Jonny Axelsson, Nick Photinos, Aiyun Huang, Dejana Sekluic, and Nina C. Young. Nolan has been the recipient of numerous academic grants and national awards including the 2019 SOCAN Awards for Young Composers, runner up in the 2019 TORQ Percussion Composition Competition, the 2021 New Media Press Solo Percussion Composition Competition, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS), and the Masters SSHRC award. His latest projects include a work for TORQ Percussion and an electroacoustic work for the University of Toronto’s TaPIR Lab.

Nolan has presented his music and research at the National Student Electronic Music Event (Ithica, New York), the CUNY Conference for Graduate Students in Music (NYC, New York), the University of Toronto’s Dialogues Performance Symposium, the Anestis Logothetis Centenary Symposium (Athens, Greece), the CeReNeM Composers’ Colloquia (Huddersfield, UK), and the Korean Electro Acoustic Music Society.

Nolan is currently pursuing a DMA at the University of Toronto with a focus on graphic notation and electroacoustic music.

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