Larry Nelson

Larry Nelson attended the University of Denver, where he studied composition with Normand Lockwood. At the graduate level, Nelson subsequently studied with composers Will Bottje at Southern Illinois University and H. Owen Reed at Michigan State University.

As a composer, Nelson has established a close relation with musical audiences throughout the United States and abroad but particularly in the greater Philadelphia area and throughout the Commonwealth. Nelson's chamber compositions have been performed by such musical groups as the Percussion Group Cincinnati, the Millennium Chamber Music Society, Orchestra 2001, the Huntingdon Trio, the New Music Society of Syracuse, Le Nouveau Music Ensemble, the Pennsylvania Chamber Players, the Penn Contemporary Players, Settlement Music School Contemporary Players, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble; his solo pieces have been performed by well-known artists, including Sylvia Glickman, Harvey Price, Mary Hannigan, Igor Popovic, Thomas Flaherty, Pamela Guidetti, Su Lian Tan, Alice Chan, Matthew Levy, Diane Gold, Barry Hannigan, and Charlotte and Peter Paulsen.

Nelson has composed works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, orchestra, and the electronic medium. Recordings of his music are available on the CRI and EAM labels. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Meet the Composer, fellowships from the Norlin Foundation and the MacDowell Colony, as well as several awards for individual compositions.

Larry Nelson is recently retired after 41 years of teaching Music Theory and Composition at West Chester University where was also Director of the Center for Music Technology.