Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles at Sweets Ballroom, 2016
Nicholas Kanozik is a multi instrumentalist, visual artist, conductor, and composer. He unifies his skills through arts administration and education. He is committed to fostering multicultural collaborations, advancing interdisciplinary arts education, and promoting reception of contemporary classical music.
Kanozik is the Music and Artistic Director for ARTogether, "50 for the Future" Education Coordinator for the Kronos Performing Arts Association, and is an member on the Board of Directors for both the California Symphony and the Purple Silk Education Foundation.
Kanozik has previously worked for Cal Performances at the University of CA Berkeley bringing thousands of students together across California including Gustavo Dudamel's Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles which he had the honor to conduct in 2018.
Additionally, Kanozik Chaired the Music Department at Oakland School for the Arts which boasts many full-ride scholarships to prestigious conservatories in the US and abroad.
In his free time Kanozik continues to develop his re-invented Light Organ and visual art endeavors through his business, Kanozik Sound Art.
Mr. Kanozik was born in Munich, Germany and has lived in Arizona, Texas, Minnesota, Kentucky, and currently resides in Northern California. He is an avid gardener and baker.
OSA Orchestra at the Fox Theater, 2015
Kanozik is an educator, multi instrumentalist, visual artist, conductor, and composer. He unifies his skills through arts administration and education.
Kanozik has been fortunate to perform in a variety of ensembles from symphony orchestras, classical and new music chamber groups, jazz combos, Indonesian gamelans, to electronic and dance collaborations. Notably, Kanozik conducted Gustavo Dudamel's Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, collaborated with Mason Bates for works premiered on Kanozik's re-invented light organ, he worked directly with Pauline Oliveros for the premier of Tower Ring at Ann Hamilton's double helical staircase, and in the fall of 2018, he conducted at Zellerbach Hall leading 170 musicians.
As an arts administrator, Mr. Kanozik has hosted master classes with Wynton Marsalis, Yo Yo Ma, Emanual Ax, Regina Carter, the Left Coast Ensemble, and has stage-managed at the 2,100 capacity Fox Theatre in Oakland, CA; additionally he has had the honor to curate a panel discussion with the Kronos String Quartet. Nick has worked to provide opportunities for Oakland's youth at PIXAR studios, Pandora, Youtube, Google, CA Govenor Jerry Brown's annual gala, and others. In 2013 and 2015, Kanozik developed "ArtMod", an interdisciplinary event hosted at Mills College bringing together sonic and kinetic art forms.
Nicholas Kanozik has performed clarinet at the Oberlin Dance Collective and has contributed samples to Understatements [i] by electroacoustic composer Ilya Rostovtsev which has been previewed at Stanford, Brown University, UNT, Cal Berkeley, the SF Tape Music Festival, and others. As a pianist, he is an active accompanist and often performs his own compositions around the Bay Area. Kanozik's compositions have been performed by the Eclipse String Quartet, the UNT Chamber Orchestra, the OSA Chamber Orchestra, the Mills Contemporary Performance Ensemble, Gamelan X, and Roscoe Mitchell's Improvisation Workshop.
In addition to his music endeavors, Mr. Kanozik is developing a career in visual art. Working predominately with watercolor, ink, and acrylic, he has been a part of solo and group exhibitions at The Compound Gallery, Mills College Pocket Gallery, The Peralta Station, Mechanism Studios, and others. Publications of Kanozik's visual art can be viewed in Issue 3 of Middle Grey Magazine and in the Tower Ring Art Book curated by Pauline Oliveros. Kanozik was particularly honored to have his visual art studio featured on the Netflix documentary The Creative Brain hosted by neuroscientist and New York Times bestseller, David Eagleman.
Given Nicholas' avid interest in book art, he taught at Mills College in the book art department teaching letterpress and book binding. In 2012 he designed a series of interactive synthesizer books alongside Taurin Barrera; these objects have been displayed at the University of North Texas' CEMI Circles Festival, Adobe Books Gallery, Mills College, CalArts, The Codex International Book fair, and The International Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco.
Thematically, Kanozik's visual work is informed by music notation, synesthesia, and representations of music boxes. To help present his visualizations alongside his sonic compositions, he designed a light organ in 2016 which has since been installed at OSA's Black Box, Sekar Jaya Performing Arts Center, Sweets Ballroom, and for Mason Bates' event "Prismatic: The Sound of Color".