“The way she played… will stay with me forever.”
— Fredric Dannen, Atención San Miguel
“a pianist like no other…
reimagining the role of the concert pianist”
— Metropolitan Opera Guild
selected discography:
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This collection of daily improvisations is an extended study of the Everyday Here-and-Now.
Of chance, immediacy, and intuition.
Each track represents my earnest meditation of that moment in spacetime in which it was recorded, capturing both the familiarity and uniqueness that we live each day.
These moments are Joyful. Tragic. Funny. Nostalgic. Sincere...
Our collective life cycles create an infinite loop of fleeting moments. We go through this cycle alone yet together, again and again, as we pass through our days in the Sun.
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2024 New York Foundation for the Arts Grant Awardee
Ordinary Places is the debut studio album from Duo Extempore, a piano + bass duo that draws from jazz & classical virtuosity, weaving together our love of creative exploration with a passion for storytelling
This album was created using field recordings of everyday locations as the third member in a musical trio. Evan Jagels & Nicole Brancato improvised in dialogue with these recordings, exploring the fluid boundaries between music and the ordinary sounds of life we experience each day — and exalting the familiar cycles and spaces of our shared humanity as truly extraordinary.
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2022 Queens Council on the Arts New Work Award
.soundfullness transforms spaces into places of deep listening, with salvaged pianos and electronics.
listening_sessions/winter was recorded live on a very cold day, on December 19, 2021 at the .soundfullness project opening at Culture Lab LIC. listening_sessions/summer was recorded live on a very hot day, on July 9th, 2022 at Socrates Sculpture Park’s New Agora Festival in NYC.
.soundfullness is a collaboration between Douglas Paulson & Nicole Brancato, and is currently in residence at Smiling Hodshead Ranch in LIC, Queens, NYC - supported in part by the Queens Council of the Arts.
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High Voltage Wires (by Dr. Sal Brancato!) is the energetic debut single of electroacoustic duo Persephone & the Phoenix, featuring Nicole Brancato & Teagan Faran.
With a genre-bending groove that’s both electric and eclectic — lavishly layered with synths, samples, extended techniques, and a quirky homage to orthodontia — Teagan Faran & Nicole Brancato transform their violin / prepared piano duo into a fantastical dance party.
Early Features & Airplay from WKCR, a Jazz Noise, WPR, Mana'o Radio, and more.
Released in 2023 on Melograno Records.
visual media:
The Song of Whitman
from Infinitesimal, a new chamber opera by Nicole Brancato & Jeremy Weiss
mundus cerialis by Nicole Brancato
premiered by the National Sawdust Ensemble
it's nice to be on the island
concert film by Duo Extempore, exploring histories of Roosevelt Island
Infinitesimally Small
from Infinitesimal, a new chamber opera by Nicole Brancato & Jeremy Weiss
if we listened to birds sometimes by Nadine Dyskant-Miller
Nicole Brancato, narrator & Steph Dressler, flutes
The Search For Up
film + score by Duo Extempore (Nicole Brancato & Evan Jagels)
transMute by Nicole Brancato
Etydit, Op. 42, No. 1 Terssit by Einojuhani Rautavaara
Nicole Brancato, piano
Etude No. 2 by Don Byron
Nicole Brancato, piano
rush by Nicole Brancato