Early & New Music
Multi-instrumentalist, Composer,
Producer, & Educator
Niccolo Seligmann (they/them) is currently the most widely-heard medieval fiddler in the world, featured in soundtracks from Netflix’s The Witcher, Firaxis Games’ Civilization VI, Obsidian Entertainment’s Pentiment, and many more big-budget and indie games, film, and streaming series. Niccolo’s opera & live theatre music includes Julie Monster: A Queer Baroque Opera, An Iliad, Minerva: Times Change, and a full-length electronic dance remix of Dave Malloy’s Ghost Quartet. They perform diverse genres nationally with early & traditional music ensembles Alkemie, The Broken Consort, Concordian Dawn, Eya, Hesperus, Washington Bach Consort, and Wherligig. When not touring with their ensembles or recording soundtracks, Niccolo can be found gleefully recording harsh noise, lo-fi dance music, glitchcore, and drone metal in their home studio in the forests of central Maryland. They hold a B.M. in Viola da gamba Performance from Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
EPK
Resume
CV
Media
Soundtracks
"Niccolo is an outstanding musician to work in the studio. They are always focused and dedicated to the music at hand, and have the virtuosity, aural acuity, and musical flexibility to play alongside a diverse spectrum of musical traditions and genres."
Geoff Knorr
composer, Civilization VI
Rates (2023)
$150 USD/hr recording artist fee, $50 engineering fee
Events
January 29, Time TBANorfolk: Old Dominion UniversityJanuary 29, Time TBANorfolk: Old Dominion University, 5115 Hampton Blvd, Norfolk, VA 23529, USA
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Compositions
"Kinship expresses a multispecies resistance to the Anthropocene: the entangled systems of domination that threaten all life on our planet. This music calls on us settlers to transform our relations with our kin—human and other-than-human—into a mutualistic symbiosis rooted in today's liberation movements."
Niccolo Seligmann
Vocal Music & Opera
Opera – about 2 hrs
Follow 18th-century French transmasculine swordfighter and opera diva Julie d'Aubigny as she swashbuckles her way through society, finding love and queer acceptance along the way. This opera uses baroque orchestra & live electronics to evoke a wide array of genres, from honky-tonk to glitch-pop. As one audience member put it: "I didn't really get the whole pronouns thing until I saw this opera."
Preview
Mirroring The Other: Yiddish Songs & Dances (2020)
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Songs & Tunes
Alkemie's 2020 program Mirroring the Other highlights commonalities and differences between Jewish and Christian medieval music. These bawdy and heartfelt songs set 15th-17th-century Yiddish texts to Niccolo Seligmann's original music using traditional synagogue modes. Vocal line is notated, instrumental accompaniment at performers' discretion
Preview
Minerva: Times Change (2019)
Opera – about 2 hrs
In this touching & campy "new Baroque opera," Niccolo Seligmann's recitatives connect Handel arias into a story of gods & humans spanning centuries. Will Warrior Princess Bracciana avenge her mother's violation? Can Walt compose his way out of slavery? Can a new app teach people—and gods—to love? Premiered by Into the Woods Productions in Richmond VA, June 2019.
Preview
Contact
for more info
Fallen Angel (2019)
Monody for voice & any instrument – about 5 min
Originally written for bass-baritone Jonathan Woody, this wistful vocal solo uses original text to narrate the resilient queer romance between a human and a fallen angel, set on a cold, rocky island after an unidentified cataclysmic climate event. The score is formatted like medieval monody: a single line and stemless noteheads, to allow for maximum freedom for an accompanist playing any instrument.
Preview
Cyclical Gratitude (2019)
Hymn for vocal ensemble – about 3-8 min
Originally written for vocal ensemble The New Consort, this piece expresses gratitude for the microbiome inside each of us, reframing the first-person experience of bodily decomposition as a gift to our microscopic kin. Each singer chooses from a set of options for each "phase" based on their neighbor's choices, progressing through phases organically as a group. Sounds different with each performance.
Preview
Instrumental Music & Trad Tunes
Excerpts from Kinship (2020)
Viola da gamba solos – about 15 minutes
Select transcriptions from Niccolo Seligmann's 2020 viola da gamba improvisation album, Kinship (Split Log Productions.) Kinship expresses multispecies resistance to extractive capitalism & white supremacy. This music calls on settlers to reframe our relationships with our other-than-human kin, work that must include Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.
Preview
Renaissance Dance Collection (2020)
Dance tunes for any instrument – 8 tunes
These dance tunes are based on 15th-and 16th-c. Italian & Burgundian "balli" and "bassadanze," written as part of Alkemie's program Sweet Friendship & Sacred Monsters' program La Gelosia! The balli in this collection have sections in different proportions of the same tactus. The bassadanze in this collection are "tenors" to be improvised over, as were the historical models.
Preview
A Sett of Tvnes in the Celtick Tradition (2019)
Tunes for bass viol & Celtic players – 6 tunes
The original tunes in this collection are written in the Celtic tradition with a bass viol player in mind. Tunes are typeset in font EMS_Serenissima (free, from EarlyMusicSources.com), based on the look of 17th-c. movable type printing. Excerpts from this collection can be found in treble clef by searching for Niccolo Seligmann on the-session.org.
Preview
Poetry & Libretto
The American Promise (2020)
About Time (2011-2020)
Full-length performance libretto
Excerpts below
Art song texts
Who are
The People?
The Promise
of Peace
The Long
River
Fallen
Angel
Now the Lark
is Silent
Teaching
10+ years of Teaching Experience:
Musicality
Technique
Improvisation
Composition
Music Theory
Performance skills
Ensemble skills
Laptop music performance & programming
Historical & traditional performance practices
Rates
$75 USD/hr, $45 half-hour
Financial need rates available
Instruments
Viola da gamba, Vielle, Psaltery, Gittern, Kemençe, Cello, Guitar, Bass guitar, hand percussion, beatboxing, laptop music performance
Lessons
Half-hour, 45-minute, and hour-long lessons
Rehearsal Coaching
Chamber ensembles, choirs, music collectives
Distance Learning
Lessons over video chat are available
Masterclasses & Workshops
Historically informed performance, improvisation,
ensemble skills, composing for early and folk instruments