Chad Nicholson

Dr. Chad R. Nicholson, Director of Bands at the University of Arizona School of Music, serves as the conductor of the University of Arizona Wind Ensemble and Chamber Winds. Additionally, he oversees the entire wind band program and instructs undergraduate and graduate wind conducting students. Nicholson has been active in all facets of music education. In 2009, he wrote a book designed to aid conductors in repertoire selection and concert programming titled Great Music for Wind Band, which has been translated into Mandarin and will be distributed across Asia shortly. He is a contributing author to sourcebook for music educators, Engaging Musical Practices, and he has written articles for eight different volumes of Teaching Music through Performance in Band.

Dr. Nicholson’s experiences as a music educator span all ages and ensemble types. He has conducted many All-State and honor groups around the world. He has done an extended residency at the Musashino Academia Musicae in Tokyo, where he led that wind ensemble on a tour and album recording. Nicholson is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Beijing Wind Orchestra, China’s first professional wind ensemble. He has served on a distinguished international panel of adjudicators for the All-Chinese Wind Band Contest. Nicholson has worked with ensembles spanning the United States and Asia, including such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, the Tokyo Metropolitan Theater, the Beijing Concert Hall, and China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts.

Dr. Nicholson has commissioned and premiered many new compositions for Wind Ensemble by such composers as David Maslanka, Jennifer Jolley, Steven Bryant, Jack Stamp, David Dzubay, James Stephenson, Steven Danyew, Nicole Piunno, and JoAnn Harris. He and his students have performed collaborations with significant conductors and composers, including Augusta Read Thomas, Joseph Schwantner, Frank Ticheli, Libby Larsen, Johan de Meij, Joan Tower, and Ray Cramer.

Nicholson is a frequent presenter and performer at regional, national, and international conferences. Dr. Nicholson led his ensemble in performance at the Taiwan International Band Clinic in Taipei and at multiple College Band Director National Association Divisional Conferences. Nicholson has presented three times at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, and he was a featured presenter at the National Association for Music Education Conference in Texas.

Before his appointment at the University of Arizona, Dr. Nicholson served on the faculties at the University of Delaware, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, and Colorado State University. He was a public school teacher in Oregon and Oklahoma. His primary conducting mentors include William Wakefield, Ken Van Winkle, Stephen W. Pratt and Ray E. Cramer. Nicholson holds degrees from the University of Oklahoma (BME), New Mexico State University (MM), and Indiana University (DM).