Zvonimir Nagy

Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dr. Zvonimir Nagy (pronounced /nadj;/) holds bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in music from the Academy of Music-University of Zagreb, Texas Christian University, and Northwestern University respectively. He has been the recipient of many honors and awards, the latest of which is the Seattle Symphony Composition Prize for Suizen, a new work for shakuhachi flute and orchestra. Nagy has written a number of vocal and instrumental works, which are published by Paraclete Press and World Library Publications. His scholarly interests are in the perceptual organization of sound and the cognitive neuroscience of music (theoretical modeling and musical structure), and in the aesthetics of contemporary music (the ways in which music engages with other discourses).

In his musical and scholarly work Nagy explores various contexts and critical perspectives that illuminate ideas on music and its impact on the mind. He is currently preparing a book which deals with a theoretical analysis of the cognitive perspectives of musical creativity that may be evoked in the very acts of musical creation. Recent publications include papers on the derivation of tone systems from the principles of tone perception and the spatiality of musical form, as well as an upcoming presentation of the research paper entitled "From Mind - within Sound - to Self" at the University of Vilnius in Lithuania in summer 2013. Before coming to Duquesne, he has taught theory, composition, and improvisation at Northwestern and St. Xavier University, and I has presented at several conferences. Dr. Nagy is Assistant Professor of Musicianship Studies at the Mary Pappert School of Music at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate music courses. As an improviser on both piano and organ, Nagy is equally active in promoting the performance practice, cognition, and philosophy of music improvisation; he serves as Cathedral and Diocesan Organist at St. Joseph Cathedral in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Nagy is a finalist of the BBC/Aberdeen Music Prize with his work for trumpet and string quartet, Ayres, which received its premiere by the musicians from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in 2011; a recipient of the 2nd prize in the 2010 César Franck & Olivier Messiaen International Organ Competition in Haarlem, the Netherlands; selected composer for the Ensemble Composition Workshop at the International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt, Germany; a recipient of the 1st Prize in the 2011 Iron Composer composition competition at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, OH; a featured composer at the 2012 New Voices Festival at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC; recipient of the Swan Prize in Music Composition at the University of Minnesota, and an invited composer at the 2012 Cleveland Composers Recording Institute in Cleveland, OH.

Nagy's music is frequently performed throughout the United States and Europe, and they have been commissioned and performed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the musicians from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, JACK Quartet, Zagreb Piano Trio, String Quartet Slavonsky, Belle Voix Choir, Fused Muse Ensemble, Cleveland Chamber Players, and by the composer himself. In Fall 2012, a work for unaccompanied choir and soloists, Pax Aeterna, was premiered and recorded by the First Reading Project ensemble at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Nagy resides in Pittsburgh with his wife, Haley.