Biographical information: Nicole M. Brockmann
Violist Nicole M. Brockmann is a performer, scholar, and teacher in New York City and southwestern Connecticut. Her teaching philosophy fuses traditionally academic training in aural skills, theory, and history with live performance, improvisation, and Eurhythmics in an integrative approach to complete and comprehensive musicianship.
In 1998, she became the violist of the Lumina String Quartet, a professional string quartet holding two educational and performance residencies in Connecticut. She has performed chamber music works with Timothy Eddy, Syoko Aki, Sidney Harth, and Jesse Levine, and is a four-time winner of the Yale Chamber Music Competition. She has given master classes in viola and chamber music at Boise State University and at the Lumina quartet's annual summer festival.
Ms. Brockmann's research on musicianship and Eurhythmics has been published in the American Dalcroze Journal. She has recently completed her first book, tentatively entitled Do You Hear What I Hear: Classical Improvisation for Chamber Ensembles, which contains techniques for developing individual and ensemble musicianship through improvisation in a chamber music setting. She has presented seminars on Eurhythmics and musicianship at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Yale University, Carnegie Mellon University, Duquesne University, the New Haven Performing Arts High School, and the Lumina and Norfolk Summer Chamber Music Festivals.
She is also an active orchestral musician, and has played in orchestras under Robert Shaw, Krzysztof Penderecki, Jaap Schroder, and Sir David Willcocks. She has appeared in recital and concert series throughout Connecticut and New York, including appearances as a guest artist at Brooklyn College and SUNY Geneseo. In 1997, she gave the world premiere of the revised version of Michael Colgrass' Variations for Four Drums and Viola.
Ms. Brockmann holds an MM, AD, MMA, and DMA (forthcoming) from Yale University and a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, where she also received her Dalcroze certification. She is a former faculty member of the Yale School of Music and is currently an adjunct professor at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut, where she teaches courses in music history, theory, and appreciation.
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