Nathan J. Stumpff (born 1978) is a musician, builder and part-time homesteader from Freedom, Maine. Nathan recently completed the degree of Master of Music as a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Fellowship recipient at Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Nils Vigeland and Julia Wolfe. As a Fulbright Scholar, he taught and worked with composer Mist Þorkelsdóttir at the Listaháskóli Islands (Iceland Academy of the Arts) in Reykjavík, Iceland. Mr. Stumpff completed his undergraduate degree with honors at Brown University, where his principal teachers were Gerald Shapiro and Elaine Bearer.
Recent commissions include those by The Esoterics choir from Seattle, WA. As 1st Prize winner in the 2006 Washington International Prize for Composers, Nathan's string quartet The Righteous and the Wicked was premiered by the Peabody Quartet at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Other recent honors include 1st prize in the 2006 Cappella Gloriana Competition for Composers for his a cappella choral work Four Rumi Songs, and residency with the California E.A.R. Unit in Arcosanti, AZ, where his work Subtleties Lost: prelude and fugue for orchestra was selected for the 2002 Minnesota Orchestra Composer’s Institute and Reading Sessions.
An active performer and conductor, Nathan has recently been guest artist with the Manhattan School of Music Percussion ensemble under Steven Schick, and with the new music ensemble TACTUS, playing the hammered dulcimer in a performance of George Crumb’s Quest. Recent conducting engagements include numerous premieres by New York composers, including appearances at the 2007 DUMBO Dance Festival in Brooklyn, NY. Nathan is a regular guest on keyboards of the Jackson, Maine based rock band Steel Toe Booty, most recently performing in the Burlington, Vermont area.