Niloufar Nourbakhsh

Described as “stark” by WNPR, and “darkly lyrical” by the New York Times, winner of 2nd Hildegard competition, and recipient of 2019 Female Discovery Grant from Opera America, Iranian composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s music has been commissioned and performed by Nashville Symphony Orchestra, I-Park Foundation, National Sawdust Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Symphony Number One, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, PUBLIQuartet, Forward Music Project, Calidore String Quartet, Cassatt String Quartet, Akropolis Reed Quintet, and Ensemble Connect at numerous festivals and venues including Carnegie Hall, Washington Kennedy Center, Mostly Mozart Festival, Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, and many more. A founding member and co-director of Iranian Female Composers Association, Nilou is a strong advocate of music education. In 2014, she worked as the site coordinator of Brooklyn Middle School Jazz Academy sponsored by Jazz at Lincoln Center. She is currently a Teaching Artist Associate for composition students of NY Philharmonic Young Composers program and teaches piano at Brooklyn Music School.

Nilou is a music graduate and a Global Citizen Scholarship recipient of Goucher College as well as a Mahoney and Caplan Scholar from University of Oxford. Among her teachers are Lisa Weiss, Laura Kaminsky, Daniel Weymouth, Matthew Barnson, Margaret Schedel and Daria Semegen. She is currently pursuing her doctorate degree in music composition under the supervision of Sheila Silver at Stony Brook University.