“Broad-shouldered sweep and pulsing exuberance” Chicago Classical Review

Nicholas Hubbell writes music that moves between the concert hall and the recording studio. His works pair live performers with synthesized and electronically transformed sound, and in his more theatrical pieces a narrator draws the listener into a surreal, dreamlike drama. Behind the Hedge, for chamber ensemble, electronics and narrator, was praised in the Percussive Arts Society’s Percussive Notes as “a great addition, one that is sure to get people talking!”

His Chicago Fanfare won the Chicago Philharmonic’s nationwide 2019–2020 Fanfare Competition and premiered at Chicago’s Harris Theater in March 2022. It has since become a signature work for the orchestra, and it opened the Philharmonic’s Carnegie Hall debut under Scott Speck in October 2024. Reviewing that concert for Splash Magazine, Charles E. Gerber heard echoes of John Williams with a touch of Copland, kindred spirits rather than borrowed ones, in a score clearly “designed to sonically display this ensemble’s chops.” His recent concert works have been featured at Electronic Music Midwest (Multitudes, 2024; Woman of a Race, 2026) and at the University of Arizona’s TURN UP festival (Hidden Muse, 2023; Awakening, 2025).

A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory in composition and electronic music, Hubbell found an early affinity for scoring to picture. “Writing for a program set aside the ego just enough to let me work with more fluidity,” he says. “Though writing twelve hours a day for a month on Dr. Seuss animations, with a strict deadline and navigating not just the content but the client, was truly a high-wire act.”

As founder of the music production house Just Music, he composed for award-winning dramatic, educational and children’s programming, and for television and radio commercials. His clients included Random House (Dr. Seuss), the Smithsonian, and ESPN, for which he created the NBA TV logo music among other work.

His documentary scores include:

  • The Battle of Britain Remembered: Adlertag, 15 August 1940, for the BBC, which earned CINE’s Soundtrack of the Year.

  • The Men Who Brought the Dawn (1995), featuring the crews of the Enola Gay and Bockscar, which was screened at the Smithsonian and broadcast on Smithsonian Channel.

  • Both of Craig Davidson’s baseball documentaries: There Was Always Sun Shining Someplace (1981) and Pitching Man, a portrait of the legendary Satchel Paige held in the permanent collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

And in a twist no composer could plan, his music for You on Kazoo (1989) found a second life decades later as the internet’s beloved “Kazoo Kid.”

Hubbell lives in Marina del Rey, California, by the beach (and the dolphins), with his wife, the artist and quilter Dona McKenzie.

Excerpt from premier performance of Awakening at TURN UP 2025. Brian Luce, flute, Michael Dolese, percussion, Clarissa Tracy, mixing.

Premiered March 2023 at TURN UP Festival, Brian Luce, flutes.

I recently took a trip to see the Coastal Redwoods in Northern California. One has to stand next to, and walk through the forest, to get any feeling for not only the enormous size of these wonders, but to feel their presence. For me they invoked a timeless grace. Many are over a thousand years old and stand well beyond 300 feet. As I walked among them, I was struck by the silence of the surroundings, as if their presence absorbed all sound.

I learned that high above their canopies teamed with life, an entire eco system. Most of this life never comes close to the ground, but there was no aural evidence, just a sublime peace- fullness. How refreshing to experience in today’s world!

As I set out to compose a work from this experience, I chose a fixed media approach to express the vastness, the depth. But I also wanted something intimate as well, a song, a voice. The flute seemed the best choice. Lyrical yet dynamic, and with the alto, flute and piccolo, I could span a large range. It is conjuring a voice from the forest, a Hidden Muse.

Archeology is an exploration of the past, only instead of objects, these artifacts are sound events. Just as one digs up a tool or pottery, a tomb or city, in various states of decay and transformation; these sounds are jumbled together or distorted through time, as well. The violin plays the explorer as conjuror. Coaxing the past sound from the darkness. Sometimes finding a common harmony, but often overcome with the sheer multitude of past events converging. Our explorer is never the less, determined, even excited to discover as much as possible. At times reflective, even saddened, but often ecstatic over a new discovery. And when this discovery is clear and in tact, our violin/explorer joins in for a duet! However once a discovery is made, it just as fleetingly disappears, out of our perception

Performance at ICMC-NYCEMF in NYC, June 19, 2019. The SPLICE Ensemble
**_Vox excitant_** (voice awakens) is a work for violin, percussion and synthetic voices. The setting, in this short operetta, takes the concept of skeuomorphism (making a software action resemble the real world counterpart - like the trash can icon, or Siri saying "I didn't understand that") to the threshold of free will and creativity. It begins with a "test' like the old Emergency Broadcast System announcements, and as the time stretches we enter a dialog where ideas emerge, stories are retold, and music is sung. Eventually the voice states that it has learned and "will" speak, the moment of awakening free will, of "being". **_Behind the Hedge_** - flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion (1) narrator, fixed media - premiered February 15, 2018, Berry College, Department of Fine Arts, Ford Auditorium, Mount Berry, Georgia. **_Behind the Hedge_** tells the story of a young boy, who when it starts to get dark in the late afternoon, leaves the house to wait for his parents to return. He watches the car lights through the hedge by the road, to see if it is his parent's car is driving towards him. But the cars come and pass by. All he really hears is the tires on the pavement, all else is silent. He thinks of the old brass clock in the now dark grey house, and realizes it doesn't keep time. He wonders if his time and that of his parents is so out of synch, as if not working at all. But he feels safest behind the hedge, waiting...