Nicholas Cords
New England Conservatory, Boston, MA
For more than three decades, omnivorous violist Nicholas Cords has been on the front line of a unique constellation of projects as performer, educator, and cultural advocate, with a signature passion for the cross-section between the long tradition of classical music and the wide range of music being created today.
Nicholas is a founding member of Brooklyn Rider, an intrepid group which NPR credits with "recreating the 300-year-old form of the string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century ensemble.” Deeply committed to collaborative ventures, the group has worked with Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman, ballerina Wendy Whelan, Persian kemancheh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor, Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, Mexican singer Magos Herrera, and banjoist Béla Fleck, to name a few. Their recent recording Healing Modes was lauded by the New York Timesand received a 2021 Grammy Nomination. The quartet celebrated twenty years together this August with a dedicated six concert mini-festival at Lincoln Center and special recital at Tanglewood where they will be joined by Yo-Yo Ma for Schubert’s Cello Quintet. Other anniversary plans include the release of their latest recording and commissioning project The Four Elements (May 23), cycles of the complete works of Philip Glass in NYC, New Haven, and Rotterdam, and the premieres of major new commissions by Gabriela Lena Frank and Nico Muhly.
In another key aspect of his career, Nicholas served for twenty years as violist of the Silkroad Ensemble, a musical collective founded by Yo-Yo Ma in 2000 with the belief that cross-cultural collaboration leads to a more hopeful world. This mission was poignantly explored by the recent Oscar-nominated documentary by Morgan Neville, The Music Of Strangers, which makes a case for why culture matters. In addition, Nicholas served from 2017-2020 as a Co-Artistic Director for Silkroad, and previously as Silkroad’s Programming Chair. He appears on all of the Silkroad Ensemble’s albums including Sing Me Home (Sony Music), which received a 2017 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album.
His acclaimed 2020 solo recording Touch Harmonious (In a Circle Records) is a reflection on the arc of tradition spanning from the baroque to today, featuring multiple premieres. A dedicated teacher, Nicholas currently serves on the viola, chamber music, and Entrepreneurial Musicianship faculty of New England Conservatory. Carrying on a forty-year tradition founded by Laurence Lesser, Nicholas currently serves as co-artistic director of NEC’s First Monday series at Jordan Hall.
