About Us
Zach and Nick began collaborating as classmates at the Curtis Institute of Music, where they worked on a number of joint projects. Zach gave the premiere of Nick’s piece Oracle in their last year at Curtis, and the two realized that they didn’t want their work together to stop there. That same year, they created a series of interactive lecture-recitals called Suite Talk, designed to demystify and destigmatize new music. That would become the pilot project for Nodality Music, out of which grew our mission to connect a wider audience to classical music.
Nodality Music is now pursuing a wide variety of projects, including a digital series, a series interdisciplinary educational programs about climate justice and other social causes, and an environmental commissioning initiative. In fact, in April 2024, they will present the first of these commissions – Nick’s newest work – at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Waterloo, Belgium. Written for two cellos, the work will be premiered by Zach and cellist Gary Hoffman. Please read more about what we’re doing in the Projects Section.
About Zachary
A native of Princeton, NJ, cellist Zachary Mowitz made his solo debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in July 2018 as winner of the Greenfield Competition. He graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2018, where he studied with Carter Brey and Peter Wiley and served as principal cello of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. He subsequently studied at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel with Gary Hoffman in Belgium, and at the Royal College of Music with Richard Lester. During the 2018/19 season, Zachary played in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra as Guest Principal Cello. He is currently an Associated Artist at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel.
In the summer of 2022, Zachary performed at the Marlboro Music Festival and will be returning this summer. Having played with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Joseph Lin, Tara Helen O’Connor, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Robert McDonald, Zachary has an intense passion for chamber music. In 2015, Zachary co-founded Trio St. Bernard, which was awarded Gold Prize at 2018 Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition. In 2019 he co-founded ensemble132, a chamber music collective that presents innovative programs of their own exciting, original transcriptions of classical masterworks, paired with staples of the traditional chamber music repertoire.
Zachary has appeared throughout the United States, visiting halls such as the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall and Perelman Hall, Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, Alice Tully Hall, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, and Johns Hopkins’ Shriver Hall. He has also toured extensively in Europe playing in venues such as the Salzburg Mozarteum, both halls of the Berlin Konzerthaus, Krzysztof Penderecki European Center for Music, Vienna Konzerthaus, Helsinki Music Centre, and London’s Cadogan Hall.
As a young musician he performed as soloist with orchestras throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He also appeared on Heifetz on Tour and the radio show From the Top, and has had performances broadcast by PBS and Philadelphia’s WHYY. In 2017, he was the subject of a feature story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Personally invested in expanding the impact of classical music, Zachary has dedicated considerable time and energy to a community engagement programs, including: organizing a benefit concert for immigrant families in partnership with ACLU and the Shut Down Berks Campaign, featuring musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra, Daedalus Quartet, and Curtis Institute; performing for Music For Food; extensive touring to schools throughout New Mexico with Music From Angel Fire; an education residency at St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, DE; and song-writing workshops at Philadelphia's Project HOME. In 2022-23, he was a Community Artist Fellow at the Curtis Institute, where he he led a climate justice education program in the Philadelphia school district and served people living with dementia in partnership with Penn Memory.
Zachary was awarded First Prize in the 2020 World Bach Competition and is the cellist of Philadelphia’s Gamut Bach Ensemble. He is based in New York and co-teaches a class on social entrepreneurship and climate justice at the Curtis Institute. In his spare time, Zachary enjoys exploring the endless world of podcasts and tossing a frisbee.
About Nick
Composer Nick DiBerardino is noted for creating “richly textured, multilayered” sound worlds (Minnesota Star Tribune) that tell fantastical tales. He has written music about everything from failed flying machines and particle physics to Walt Whitman and tall glasses of beet juice.
A Rhodes Scholar, Nick has received commissions from numerous artists and institutions, including Symphony Tacoma, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the New College Choir, arx duo, Sandbox Percussion, The Brass Project, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Music From Angel Fire, and saxophonist Matthew Levy. Residencies include those for the Intimacy of Creativity Festival at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Avaloch Farm Music Institute, and Luzerne Music Center. His works have been performed around the world by the American Composers Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, Aizuri Quartet, Contemporaneous, So Percussion, and the Israeli Chamber Project; and artists Tony Arnold, Tara O’Connor, Danny Phillips, Steven Copes, Sonora Slocum, and Priscilla Lee, among many others.
Nick has a history of spearheading innovative musical projects, including founding England’s first laptop orchestra, OxLOrk. He has designed several collaborative compositional initiatives, including a children’s opera composed with students at Girard College and a workshop series for people living with Alzheimer’s disease created in partnership with the Penn Memory Center.
Nick holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, an M.Phil with distinction from the University of Oxford, a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, and a post-baccalaureate diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, all in composition. He is currently finishing his dissertation as a PhD candidate at Princeton University.
NIck is the Chair of Composition Studies and Dean of the Curtis Institute of Music. In addition to his work on the composition faculty, Nick has served on Curtis’ Musical Studies faculty and was the Musical Studies Lead Instructor and Composition Coordinator at Curtis' Young Artist Summer Program. He now serves in a similar capacity for Curtis’ partnership with the Sphinx Performance Academy, a program with a primary focus on cultural diversity that actively recruits students from cultural backgrounds underrepresented in the field of classical music.