Principal Music Director
Listed among Australia’s best classical performers by the ABC in 2019, New Zealand-born harpsichordist, synth artist, and organist, Donald Nicolson, is a prominent figure in performance and research of the music of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, and in high demand as a keyboardist, composer, and arranger.
A PhD in Musicology at the University of Melbourne in 2018, and an avid reader of the classics and ancient rhetoric, Donald is Early Music Studio convenor at the University of Melbourne, and gives regular talks and lectures on music and history.
Donald maintains a busy performing schedule in the early music scene and on the orchestral platform, with Genesis Baroque, Van Diemen’s Band, Pinchgut Opera, Latitude 37, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He is and a key member of Anja & Zlatna, an ensemble which infuses the folk music of the Balkans with improvisational practices of the seventeenth century, and is co-founder of baroque/electronic duo Bronzewing with violist Katie Yap. His critically acclaimed 2022 commission from Van Diemen’s Band, Spirals, toured Australia and New Zealand, drawing on influences ranging from 17th-century Italy to video game music.
Donald is equally at home in front of the harpsichord, synthesizer, or looper. He has an extensive discography that encapsulates his well-known diversity as a musician, ranging from William Byrd (Latitude 37: Royal Consorts) to John Psathas (Helix).
