Sun Valley Artist Series is funded in part by a grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts

Nathan Schram, viola

Hailed by the New York Times as an “elegant soloist” with a sound “devotional with its liquid intensity,” Nathan is the violist of the Bryant Park Quartet as well as a member of the Carnegie Hall trained ensemble Decoda. Nathan explores other musical interests by playing with an array of adventurous ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, ACME, New York Baroque Incorporated, Le Train Bleu, and the Wordless Orchestra. Working with many of today’s great composers he has premiered music by Steve Reich, Nico Muhly, Timo Andres, David Bruce, Brooks Frederickson, Elliot Cole and Brad Balliet. He is also a founding member of the string trio Speed Bump, an ensemble devoted to improvisation and performing their own compositions.

Apart from performing, Nathan is the Founding Director of Musicambia, a New York based initiative establishing a network of music conservatories within prisons and jails in the United States. In addition to their work in the U.S., Musicambia has collaborated with projects in Venezuela and Scotland.

Nathan is an Alumnus of Carnegie Hall and Juilliard’s Ensemble ACJW. As an ACJW Fellow, Nathan participated in frequent chamber music performances throughout the city’s leading chamber music venues such as Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Lincoln Center, and WQXR’s Greene Space. In addition to chamber music performances Nathan partnered with Elementary School PS75k in Bushwick, Brooklyn as the resident teaching artist. His experience as a teaching artist and ACJW fellow was documented by radio journalist Jeff Lunden as a 2-year, four-part series for NPR’s Weekend Edition.

Nathan is a prizewinner of the 2007 Primrose International Viola competition, the 2006 Corpus Christi Concerto Competition and a First Prize winner of the 2008 ASTA National Solo Competition. He studied at Indiana University with Alan de Veritch and at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain with Diemut Poppen and Yuval Gotlibovich. Nathan has performed chamber music alongside Itzhak Perlman, Colin Carr, Gil Kalish, Phil Setzer, Atar Arad, Joshua Bell, Ron Leonard, and Jonathan Carney.

Nathan’s arrangements and compositions have been heard in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In his spare time, Nathan is also an enthusiastic painter. As an athlete and lover of the outdoors Nathan was a cyclist on the School of Fine Arts (SoFA) Cycling team for Indiana University’s Annual Little 500. He has also spent 6-weeks experiencing the USA on a self-contained bicycle journey from Bloomington, Indiana to San Francisco, California. On his 25th birthday he completed the Ottowa Marathon.

Nathan is a proud and die-hard follower of the Atlético de Madrid Club de Fútbol.