Nick Grondin

Position
Assistant Professor
Affiliated Departments
Telephone
617-747-6434

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Career Highlights
  • Sings and plays guitar, lap steel, bass, piano, drums, harmonica, and mandolin
  • Leader of Nick Grondin Group and Nick Grondin Jazz Orchestra
  • Member of Public Domain and Jazz Composers' Collective Quintet
  • Has performed with Joshua Redman, Bob Moses, and Il Divo at the Panama Jazz Festival
  • Recordings inculde SongTeller by The Jazz Orchestra Project (2009)
  • Teaching Fellow in Jazz Harmony and Jazz Improvisation at Harvard University
  • BMI Jazz Composers’ Workshop (2009-2011) with Jim McNeely and Mike Holober
Awards
  • DownBeat Student Music Awards for Best Extended Jazz Composition and Arrangement (2007, 2008)
  • Received three ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Awards (2008, 2009, 2011)
Education
  • M.M., New England Conservatory, jazz studies: composition (2008)
  • B.A., Macalester College, music, minor in French, summa cum laude (2005)
  • Studied at the CIM and EDIM Schools of Modern Music, Paris, France
In Their Own Words

"I want students to be able to recognize the relationship between the skills in the class and then the real-world skills that they’ll need when they go out and play with real people, or record people, or use music therapy … to understand that ear training and the skills you learn in that class (have) an important relationship to their musical careers."

"I have experience playing a lot of different songs and genres of music besides jazz and rock, and so I try to bring in these different genres, different experiences, into the real musical examples that we use in the class, as much as possible given the curriculum."

"A lot of students say, 'I’m here because I want to play with people and I want to learn how to read music, and learn these fundamental and musical skills to be able to communicate with musicians professionally.' So that’s why we have ear training, so that we can give students this base of information so they can go out and communicate with other musicians, other professionals. And that’s why it’s better than YouTube."