Called “a brilliant musical scientist” (CBC), “breathtakingly inventive” (Sydney Times Herald), and “utterly inspiring” (I Care If You Listen), award-winning composer, filmmaker, and performer Nicole Lizée explores themes of glitch, psychedelia, punk, thrash metal, urbex, 1970s/80s paranoia, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Alexander McQueen, and bygone candy to forge a new kind of expression. She finds inspiration in the early days of MTV, turntablism, rave culture, video game creation, and stop-motion animation, captivated by their raw beauty and fearless inventiveness.
Nicole’s compositions range from works for turntablist featuring turntable techniques fully notated and integrated into a concert music setting, to other unorthodox instrument combinations including the Atari 2600 video game console, vintage board games, stylophones, Simon™, Pop Rocks candy, and karaoke tapes.
Nicole’s works are performed worldwide to international acclaim. Awards include a JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year, Music Critics Association of North America Award for Best New Opera, Prix Opus for Composer of the Year, SOCAN Jan V. Matejcek Award, and the Canada Council Jules Léger Prize. Her commission list includes the Kronos Quartet, the BBC Proms, the New York Philharmonic, the National Arts Centre, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.