Niloufar Nourbakhsh

Described as “stark” by WNPR and “darkly lyrical” by the New York Times, a winner of the Second Annual Hildegard competition and a 2019 recipient of OPERA America’s Discovery Grant, Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s music has been commissioned and performed by Nashville Symphony, I-Park Foundation, National Sawdust Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, Forward Music Project, PUBLIQuartet, Ensemble Connect, Akropolis Reed Quintet, and Calidore Quartet at numerous festivals and venues including Carnegie Hall, and Washington Kennedy Center, Mostly Mozart Festival, Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, and many more. A founder and director of Iranian Female Composers Association, Nilou is a strong advocate for music education and equal opportunities. 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, Sheila Silver, Margaret Schedel, and Daniel Weymouth. She is currently pursuing her doctorate degree in music composition under the supervision of Matthew Barnson at Stony Brook University.