Praised as a "sensitive pianist" and "outstanding accompanist" who delivers "powerful interpretations," Nicole Elyse DiPaolo enjoys a multifaceted career as a sought-after collaborative pianist, educational composer, arranger, coach, private teacher, and adjunct music professor. Currently based in the Nashville area, Ms. DiPaolo has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Ambassador Chamber Players on multiple occasions (two of which also featured her own Piano Trio in C minor) and as a recitalist, collaborator, and presenter worldwide.
Currently, Ms. DiPaolo is an online Adjunct Lecturer in Music (Music in General Studies) at Indiana University; the Principal Theory Teacher at Liberty Park Music, an online-only video subscription-based music school; an invited blog contributor and guest instructor at Tonebase; and a sought-after online instructor of piano, music theory, and composition. She has additionally been an online teaching artist for the Tunaweza Kimuziki cultural/artistic exchange program+, through which IU instructors teach undergraduate music students in Kenya via Zoom and WhatsApp. Ms. DiPaolo was also on the composition and collaborative piano faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in 2014 and 2015. In June 2018, Ms. DiPaolo was a Collaborative Piano Fellow at the Bay View Music Festival in Petoskey, Michigan, performing with the festival's SOARS voice program participants on fully staged opera scenes and art song recitals as well as in the Bay View Young Artist Series (Charlevoix, MI). She then joined the Spooky Goose Opera team as an online coach/pianist for their Quarantine Concert Series, the world's first livestreamed Zoom production.
Ms. DiPaolo began formal music study at age 5 in the Detroit area. At age 10 she enrolled in the University of Michigan's preparatory piano program, and she performed her first full solo recital at age 11; additionally, she spent three summer sessions at the All-State Piano Program at Interlochen, where she won awards in music theory and piano literature. Ms. DiPaolo continues to perform throughout the Midwest while maintaining a private online studio, continuing a teaching lineage that can be traced through Bela Bartok (a great-grand-instructor) to Franz Liszt and Beethoven. Her principal teachers have included Michele Cooker, Louis Nagel, Joanne Smith, and Alan Huckleberry; she has also had the pleasure of undertaking additional coaching with Menahem Pressler, Waleed Howrani, Christopher Harding, Donald Morelock, Philip Bush, John Ellis, and the late Eugene Bossart. She holds a B.Mus in Music Theory from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where she studied piano under Dr. Nagel; additionally, she studied composition with Bright Sheng and basso continuo (harpsichord accompaniment) with Edward Parmentier. Ms. DiPaolo also holds an MM in Music Theory from Indiana University-Bloomington, where she has achieved PhD candidacy alongside a completed doctoral minor in composition (under Claude Baker, Don Freund, P. Q. Phan, and David Schneider) and studies in French and German diction (under Gary Arvin) to complement her frequent collaborations with IU's voice students. Ms. DiPaolo has undertaken more recent piano pedagogy studies with Russian approach expert Irina Gorin, the author of the Tales of a Musical Journey piano method, and is Level 1 and Level 2 certified in Tales. She is currently enrolled in the Royal Conservatory (RCM) online teacher mentorship program administered by Jonathan Roberts, and she regularly seeks such professional development opportunities in order to grow as a pedagogue.
When not on the piano bench, Ms. DiPaolo continues to compose and arrange, and her compositions have been described as "brilliant" (Andrew Eales at pianodao.com) and "a welcome addition to the repertoire" (Frances Wilson at interlude.hk), as well as "very effective" with a "fantastic amount of intrigue," "mindfulness...[and] colorful nuance" (Seven Sky Music). Ms. DiPaolo's music has been heard across the world. Along with numerous performances in the Midwest, her commissioned song settings of Muscogee poet laureate Alexander Posey's texts have been performed nationwide, and the Smithsonian Institution procured copies of two of these (Nature's Blessings and A Vision) to archive at the National Museum of the American Indian. Ms. DiPaolo's music also received its Mexican premiere in 2013 with a performance of her Divertimento, written for the International String Quartet of Yucatán. In 2014 Ms. DiPaolo published a set of twenty short pedagogical pieces in uncommon keys, entitled Venturing Beyond, for early-intermediate pianists of all ages, available on SheetMusicPlus and MusicaNeo, and she is currently working on Vignettes, a new set of pedagogical pieces that will introduce intermediate pianists to the Impressionist language of Maurice Ravel. While living in Bloomington, Ms. DiPaolo was commissioned to create a choral arrangement of "Ride," the city of Bloomington's official bicentennial song, for the Bloomington Community Song Project. After she relocated to Cleveland, her Divertimento and Lucid Dreaming for solo harp were featured at the "She Scores" new music festival, celebrating women composers with ties to Ohio, held at Case Western Reserve University in June 2022 and rebroadcast on Mark Satola's "Cleveland Ovations" program on WCLV radio (90.3) in October. Most recently, Ms. DiPaolo's Nocturne in G-sharp minor was selected for inclusion in 22 Nocturnes for Chopin, a collection of Chopin-inspired piano compositions to be presented in recital and published by EVC Music (dist. Hal Leonard) in 2023.
Also a sought-after composition teacher and adjudicator, Ms. DiPaolo frequently judges state, regional, and divisional MTNA composition competitions at all levels, ranging from elementary to college-level Young Artists. In her private online studio, she has recently expanded her curricular offerings to include partimento and other historical methods of teaching tonal composition and improvisation. (Click here to find out more about these methods.)
Short(ish) Bio - Composition
Nicole Elyse DiPaolo is a composer, collaborative pianist, and music theorist whose music has been described as "very effective" with a "fantastic amount of intrigue," "mindfulness...[and] colorful nuance" (Seven Sky Music). Ms. DiPaolo holds a completed doctoral minor in composition from Indiana University, having studied with Claude Baker, Don Freund, P. Q. Phan, and David Schneider. She also holds an MM in Music Theory (with a composition outside area) from IU and a B.Mus. from the University of Michigan, where she studied composition with Bright Sheng and piano with Louis Nagel. Nicole's music has been heard across the world. along with numerous performances in the Midwest, her commissioned song settings of Muscogee poet laureate Alexander Posey's texts have been performed at Shorter College (GA) and Lincoln University (PA), and the Smithsonian Institution procured copies of two of these (Nature's Blessings and A Vision) to archive at the National Museum of the American Indian. Additionally, Nicole's viola duo Three Episodes was featured at Ball State University's 40th Annual New Music Festival in February 2010. Her early compositions have been garnering interest as well: music students in Kenya performed several of Nicole's such pieces in May 2013 through a pedagogical project spearheaded by opera coach Kimberly Carballo. Nicole's music also received its Mexican premiere in October 2013 with a performance of her Divertimento, written for the International String Quartet of Yucatan.
In 2014 Nicole published a set of twenty short pedagogical pieces in uncommon keys, entitled Venturing Beyond, for late-beginner and early-intermediate pianists of all ages, available on SheetMusicPlus and MusicaNeo, and has garnered international acclaim as a pedagogical composer ever since. In 2023 her Nocturne in G# minor will be published by EVC Music, distributed by Hal Leonard, as part of the 22 Nocturnes for Chopin anthology, and presented in recital in England. Also a sought-after teacher and adjudicator, Nicole frequently judges regional and divisional MTNA composition competitions at all levels, ranging from elementary to college-level Young Artists, and she served as the chair of the composition department at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in 2014.
New short bios for piano and theory/partimento are forthcoming!