Called “a brilliant musical scientist” (CBC), “breathtakingly inventive” (Sydney Times Herald), and “utterly inspiring” (I Care If You Listen), award winning composer and filmmaker Nicole Lizée creates new music and video from an eclectic mix of influences including the earliest MTV videos, turntablism, glitch, rave culture, film theory, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Alexander McQueen, thrash metal, 1960s psychedelia and 1960s modernism.

Nicole’s compositions range from works for orchestra and solo turntablist featuring turntable techniques fully notated and integrated into a concert music setting, to other unorthodox instrument combinations that include the Atari 2600 video game console, vintage board games, omnichords, stylophones, Simon™, Merlin™, Ouija boards, and karaoke tapes. In the broad scope of her evolving œuvre she explores such themes as malfunction, reviving the obsolete, and the harnessing of imperfection and glitch to create a new kind of precision and expression.

Her commission list of over 60 works includes the Kronos Quartet, the BBC Proms, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, Carnegie Hall, Bang On a Can, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, London Sinfonietta, Donaueschingen Festival, stargaze, the National Film Board, Australian Art Orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia, Sō Percussion, Eve Egoyan, Tapestry Opera, and the Banff Centre.

Nicole’s works are regularly performed worldwide to international acclaim. She has received several awards including the Opus prize for Composer of the Year, the SOCAN’s Jan V Matejcek Award, the Canada Council for the Arts Jules Léger Prize for Chamber Music, an Images Festival Award, and the Canada Council Robert Fleming Prize for achievements in composition. She’s received two JUNO nominations for composition of the year. She is a Lucas Artists Fellow (California) and a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow (Italy). In 2016 she was selected by composer Howard Shore to be his protégée as part of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards.

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