Nathan Hudson is a composer and educator currently living in Charlotte. His music has been called “…simple, yet cinematic” (Sybaritic Singer) and “Tonal-lyrical-primal-old/new-synthetic and partakes of a rhapsodical quality in new ways…” (Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review). It has been commented upon as “...dazzlingly demonstrative writing” that wields “unexpected expressivity” (VOIX-DE-ARTS). As a curator, Nathan has collaborated with author Ben Loory (Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, Tales of Falling and Flying), the saxophone quartet ~Nois and has also curated at MISE-EN_PLACE Bushwick to present cross-disciplinary concerts of new music. The recipient of several awards, grants, prizes and residencies, he has had works performed at colleges across the country and at festivals such as the: Aspen Music Festival and School, Avaloch Music Institute, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, Orford Music Festival, Carlsbad Music Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, Lancaster New Sounds, National Trumpet Competition, International Trumpet Guild Conference, International Clarinet Association National Conference, NUNC! 3 (at Northwestern University) and the International Double Reed Society Conference, among others. From 2015-17 he was the composer-in-residence with the Rushmore Music Festival. His debut album, ‘music for falling and flying’ (in collaboration with writer Ben Loory), released on Neuma Records in October 2024. Check out the record here: https://nathanhudson.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-falling-and-flying
Selected ensembles that Nathan has worked with include ~Nois, F-Plus, Unheard-Of//Ensemble, Duo Cylindre, The Astralis Chamber Ensemble, The Zafa Collective, The Cavell Trio, Harmonie del Sur, Ritual Action, The Off-Broadway Trio, the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble, the Atlanta Trombone Cartel, The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra and the Arapahoe Philharmonic. His music has been recorded by Unheard-Of//Ensemble, Duo Cylindre, Andy Hudson, Nikki Abissi and the Off-Broadway Trio.
In 2020 Nathan began the Next Generation Trumpet Competition (NGTC). NGTC (which completed its fourth and final edition in 2024) was a new music contest for trumpet featuring new works by established composers. NGTC has commissioned 45 works for solo trumpet (and four for trumpet ensemble), and has featured some of today's leading composers including Viet Cuong, Donald Grantham, Molly Joyce, Kevin Day, James M. David and Sheila Silver among many more, and trumpet artists such as Jonas Wiik (Royal Danish Opera), Andy Kozar (Loadbang), Gillian Huff (Hellcat Buglers), Peter Bond (Metropolitan Opera - Retired), Gareth Flowers (International Contemporary Ensemble) and Raquel Samayoa (Seraph Brass) and others, with participants from over 10 countries. Learn more at: https://www.nextgenerationtrumpet.com
He was a co-founder, along with Ginevra Petrucci, and served as the executive director for the Flauto d’Amore Project. The Flauto d’Amore Project was a long-term, large-scale commissioning project involving the creation of a new repertoire for the flauto d'amore, an instrument that, in its modern form, is completely unknown. In 2021 the Flauto d'Amore Project was a featured presenter at the New Music Gathering. Learn more at: https://www.flautodamore.com
Nathan is the founder and director of the Forage & Flourish Contemporary Music Festival, as well as the Forage & Flourish Community Music Project. Forage & Flourish (F&F) is a week of community concerts and student workshops in Alpharetta, GA commissioning and featuring forward thinking, boundary breaking and educational music written by living composers, and performed by internationally acclaimed faculty and our festival participants. F&F is supported by, and presented in partnership with the City of Alpharetta (GA) and Fulton County (GA) - It will make its return in Summer 2027.
He holds a BM in Trumpet Performance from the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University, an MA in Composition from Stony Brook University and a PhD from Stony Brook University, studying with Daniel Weymouth, Perry Goldstein, Matthew Barnson and Fred Cohen. He currently teaches music as a Full Time Instructor at Central Piedmont Community College (Charlotte, NC) where he serves as Music Theory Coordinator. Recently he was a member of the faculty at San José State University as a Lecturer of Music, and before that taught the undergraduate aural skills and music theory curriculum at Stony Brook University.