Stress Position Artist Profiles

Marilyn Nonken

Marilyn Nonken is one of the most celebrated champions of the modern repertoire of her generation, known for performances that explore transcendent virtuosity and extremes of musical expression. Upon her 1993 New York debut, she was heralded as “a determined protector of important music” (New York Times). Today, she is recognized as “one of the greatest interpreters of new music” (American Record Guide).

Marilyn Nonken’s performances have been presented world over, at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, IRCAM, and the ABC (Australia) to the Sibelius Academy, the Rothko Chapel, and (le) Poisson Rouge, Roulette, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, where she is based. Composers who have written for her include Milton Babbitt, Drew Baker, Richard Beaudoin, Chris Dench, Pascal Dusapin, Jason Eckardt, Michael Finnissy, Elizabeth Hoffman, Liza Lim, Tristan Murail, and David Rakowski. Festival appearances include Résonances and the Festival d’Automne (both, Paris), Musica Nova (Helsinki), Aspects des Musiques d’Aujourd-hui (Caën), Messiaen 2008 (Birmingham, UK), New Music Days (Ostrava), Musikhøst (Odense), When Morty Met John (New York), Works and Process (New York), Music on the Edge (Pittsburgh), The Festival of New American Music (Sacramento), American Sublime (Philadelphia), and the William Kapell International Piano Festival and Competition. Also active as a chamber musician, she has performed and recorded with Ensemble 21 (the New York group of which she is a co-founder and Artistic Director) and Elision and has appeared as a guest with the Group for Contemporary Music, MusicNOW (Chicago), Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Speculum Musicae, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She also performs with pianist Sarah Rothenberg, exploring the contemporary repertoire for two pianos. Marilyn Nonken has recorded for New World Records, Bridge, Centaur, Mode, Lovely Music, Albany, Metier, Divine Art, Innova, CRI, BMOP Sound, New Focus, Tzadik, and Kairos.

A student of David Burge at the Eastman School, she received a Ph.D. degree in musicology from Columbia University. Her writings on music have been published in Tempo, Perspectives of New Music, Contemporary Music Review, Agni, Current Musicology, Ecological Psychology, and the Journal of the Institute for Studies in American Music.

Currently Director of Piano Studies at New York University’s Steinhardt School, Marilyn Nonken is a Steinway Artist.

Drew Baker

Drew Baker is a Chicago-based composer and pianist. He writes primarily for acoustic instrumentations and has collaborated with a number of renowned ensembles and performers including Chicago Chamber Musicians, Ensemble 21, Ensemble Dal Niente, The Group for Contemporary Music, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Talea Ensemble and pianists Marilyn Nonken and Amy Briggs. His music has been performed at festivals and concert series around the world including Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Musica Nova Helsinki Festival, Music Harvest Festival in Denmark and Pittsburgh’s Music on the Edge series.

Baker earned a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the Eastman School of Music, a Master of Music in Composition from Rice University and a Doctor of Music in Composition from Northwestern University. His primary composition teachers have included Marti Epstein, Augusta Read Thomas, Shih-Hui Chen, Karim Al-Zand and Jason Eckardt. He studied piano with Douglas Humpherys and Jeanne Kierman Fischer. In addition to composing, Baker maintains a blog devoted to contemporary music and art-related topics.