nicole
PAIEMENT
conductor
Biography
Conductor,
Nicole Paiement, has been the Artistic Director of Ensemble Parallèle
since 1993. With this professional ensemble Paiement has recorded many
world-premiere performances including music by Lou Harrison (3 CDs), Germaine
Tailleferre (2 CDs), Henry Cowell, Claude Debussy, Henri Collet, Andrew
Imbrie and music by students of Olivier Messiaen. The Ensemble is dedicated
to the performance of music from the 20th and 21st centuries and has commissioned
many new works from composers of various countries. Commissions and world
premieres have included music by Laura Schwendinger, Elinor Armer, Alden
Jenks, Bruce Mather, Stella Sung, Jacques Desjardins, John Harbison, Hi
Kyung Kim, Carolyn Yarnell, Wayne Peterson, and Robert Helps. The quality
of their work has been supported by many organizations including the National
Endowment of the Arts, the Art Research Institute of the University of
California, and the Aaron Copland Foundation.
Since 1999, Paiement has also been the Artistic Director of the San Francisco
Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble (NME). Under her baton, NME has
gained recognition in the Bay Area as a dynamic new-music ensemble, promoting
and commissioning works of living composers. The Ensemble has commissioned
many works including music by Martha Horst, Eric Sawyer, Cindy Cox and
Alexandra Vrebalov. Recordings with this ensemble include music by David
Conte, Michèle Reverdy, Darius Milhaud and Andrew Imbrie. The Ensemble
also focuses on honoring the accomplishments of established living composers.
Such events have included concerts around Elinor Armer, George Perle,
Andrew Imbrie, Sophia Gubaidulina and Chou Wen-chung. Paiement is also
the Director of Ensembles at the University of California, Santa Cruz
where she conducts the Orchestra, the Chamber Singers and the Opera. With
her University ensembles, she has recorded various CDs including music
by Schütz, Stradella, Tailleferre, Cope, and Harrison.
In 2002, Paiement, with the support of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, founded the BluePrint project – a series focused on building new music for the city. Receiving rave reviews from the press as being “something remarkable and unique in the big bad city” it quickly gained a reputation for presenting unique and expert programs. In its first season BluePrint, in collaboration with the French Embassy, honored the work of Messiaen and the legacy of his living students. Composers from various countries who had studied with the master came to San Francisco to participate in panel discussions of their music. American premieres of their work were presented and recorded. During that season, Paiement also honored the class of Darius Milhaud, students of his teaching at Mills College. Various living American composers who had studied with him participated in the event. Another highlight of the season was the BluePrint collaboration with the International Women Composers Festival in the presentation of works by living women composers from around the world. During BluePrint 2003-04, Paiement collaborated with the Other Mind Festival in San Francisco and conducted the American premiere of Hanna Kulenty’s Flute Concerto. This past season, BluePrint celebrated the achievements of three pillars of music: Ligeti, Weill and Dutilleux. As expressed by the press at the close of the season “BluePrint, now finishing its third year is certainly among the finest blendings of older 20th century and new music that I’ve seen anywhere….. they make it fit together with panache.”
Paiement’s interest in both vocal and instrumental music has led her to conduct and record many new operas. With Ensemble Parallèle, she recorded the world premiere of Lou Harrison’s serial opera Rapunzel. She is presently working on mounting the premiere of Harrison’s last opera Young Caesar. She also recorded David Conte’s The Gift of the Magi. In 2003, she made her Korean debut conducting the world premiere of Chan-Hae Lee’s opera Back to the Origines and Nicola Le Fanu’s Old Woman of Beare. Last year, she returned to Korea to conduct a reprise of Chan-Hae Lee’s opera and to also conduct the Korean premiere of David Jones’s Bardos. In her interest to work on interdisciplinary projects, she has collaborated with many dancers and media artists. Through these collaborations she toured with Ensemble Parallèle in Australia last summer and participated in the Asian-American-Australian Sound-Dance and Multi-media Connections in the premiere performance of Hi Kyung Kim’s Rituel III. This work involved the collaboration of dancer Aeju Lee, video artist Eliot Anderson and choreographer Tandy Beal. A reprise of this project was performed in Los Angeles and at the San Francisco International Art Festival.
Paiement is also an active guest-conductor. Her more recent guest conducting engagements have included the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Kochi Orchestra from Japan, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra, the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra. This coming Fall, she will return to Korea to conduct the Seoul Symphony in an orchestral concert of world premieres.
Paiement
received her doctorate in conducting from the Eastman School of Music
and has had additional studies with Eric Leinsdorf. She has won numerous
awards for her work in both early and contemporary music.
