Nathan Nordstrom is a music performance major with emphasis on guitar. He began studying guitar with Chuck Hulihan in 2012 at Glendale Community College, where he also studied music composition with Dr. Robert Albury and Dr. Robert Elser. While at GCC, Nathan was employed as the sole music tutor for four semesters, providing help for students with theory, guitar, and piano. In 2016, he transferred to Arizona State University where he began studying guitar with Frank Koonce and Jonathan Crissman. Nathan is currently in his final undergraduate semester at ASU, and has been studying both guitar and composition with Jiji Kim for the past year. After completing his bachelor’s, Nathan plans to continue his studies at ASU and pursue a master’s in music performance.
Nathan has extensive ensemble experience, and has performed in duos, trios, quartets, sextets, and orchestras. With these ensembles, he has toured across Arizona, and has performed world premieres of multiple pieces. Due to the large emphasis that he has placed on ensemble, he has enormous experience working with others. This has greatly influenced his teaching ability, allowing him to communicate musical concepts with patience and understanding.
Nathan is extremely well versed in music theory, and has used this understanding to craft his own complex theoretical concepts and to construct alternative ways to present traditional music theory in easily approachable manners. Under the guidance of his current instructor, Jiji Kim, he is currently creating his own method of applying these concepts to the guitar for the purpose of publication. His vast knowledge of music theory allows him to explain concepts in multiple ways to students and to reinforce important foundations of musical understanding.
Nathan has performed in a number of masterclasses for many of the world’s most renown classical guitarists. Using this experience, he has won and placed in several large competitions for composition, solo guitar, and guitar ensemble. In addition to existing repertoire, he actively performs his own original compositions and improvisations, which draw inspiration from his background in classical music and often include elements of flamenco. He regularly uses his ability to improvise in lessons with students to provide accompaniment, create exercises, and demonstrate concepts using multiple examples.