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Nicole DiPaolo

Theory
  • PhD candidate in Music Theory at Indiana University

  • Versatile composer, collaborative pianist, and scholar

  • A teacher with students of all ages

Nicole Elyse DiPaolo is a versatile composer, pianist, and scholar originally hailing from the Detroit area. Currently pursuing a PhD in Music Theory at Indiana University, she recently completed a doctoral minor in composition, having studied with Claude Baker, Don Freund, P. Q. Phan, and David Schneider. She also holds a B.Mus. in Music Theory from the University of Michigan, where she studied composition with Bright Sheng and piano with Louis Nagel and Michele Cooker.

Nicole’s music has been heard across the world: along with numerous performances in the Midwest, her commissioned song settings of Muscogee poet laureate Alexander Posey’s texts have been performed at Shorter College (GA) and Lincoln University (PA), and the Smithsonian Institution procured copies of two of these to archive at the National Museum of the American Indian. Additionally, Nicole’s viola duo Three Episodes was featured at Ball State University’s 40th Annual New Music Festival. Most recently, Nicole’s music received its Mexican premiere in October 2013 with a performance of her Divertimento, written for the International String Quartet of Yucatán. Nicole is also garnering acclaim as a pedagogical composer: her volume of twenty short piano solos in unusual keys for late beginners, entitled Venturing Beyond, was published in July 2014 and is currently available for sale on SheetMusicPlus.

As a music theorist, Nicole has published articles on Beethoven, Giovanni Sgambati and Giuseppe Martucci, and she has presented at numerous conferences in the US and internationally. Her other research interests include music theory pedagogy; music perception and cognition; form and phrase structure; and schema theory. Nicole also taught as an Associate Instructor at Indiana University for five years, covering the entire undergraduate core curriculum in both written theory and aural skills along with graduate review aural skills.

Nicole continues to perform widely as a pianist, and during the 2013-2014 academic year she completed two contracts aboard Holland America cruise ships accompanying violinist Amy Schlicher as the Duo del Mare. Additionally, she maintains a private piano studio for teens and adults, continuing a teaching lineage that can be traced through Béla Bartók (a great-grand-instructor) to Franz Liszt and Beethoven.

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Courses Taught by Nicole