Nicholas Isherwood (Oberlin: B.A., B.M. Ecole des Hautes Etudes: MA) is a singer, director, teacher and researcher. 

Focusing on early and contemporary music, his career has led him to perform in  venues such as La Scala, Covent Garden, the Salzburg Festival, all three Berlin opera houses and Tanglewood. He has sung on 5 continents, working with conductors such as William Christie, Joel Cohen, Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and composers Sylvano Bussotti, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Mauricio Kagel, Olivier Messiaen, Giacinto Scelsi, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis.  He has improvised with Steve Lacy, Joëlle Léandre, David Moss and Sainkho Namtchilak.  He has recorded 52 cd’s and made several films. 

Isherwood has directed productions of Adriano Banchieri’s “La Pazzia Senile,” John Cage’s “Song Books,” Bruno Maderna’s “Satyricon,” Mauricio Kagel’s “Phonophonie,” and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Am Himmel Wandre Ich” at venues such as the Stuttgart Opera, Carré Saint Vincent (Orléans), Teatro Regio (Torino), Teatro Petruzzelli (Bari), Sala Uno (Rome), Teatro Fondamenta Nuove (Venice), Théatre Sylvia Monfort (Paris), Why Note? (Dijon), Musique en Scène (Lyon), Musica y Escena (Mexico City), Stanford University and in student productions at SUNY at Buffalo and Calarts.

Nicholas Isherwood has taught master classes at schools such as the Paris Conservatoire, Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi (Milano), the Stockhausenkurse and the Salzburg Mozarteum and held positions as visiting professor of voice at SUNY at Buffalo (also director of the opera program), Notre Dame, the Conservatoire de Montbéliard, the Ecole Normale de Musique (Paris) and Calarts.

Isherwood is currently finishing a PhD dissertation on the songs of the Kuna natives in Panamá under the directon of Simha Arom and Carlo Severi at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes (Paris).  He has published an article in the journal of the Scelsi Foundation.  In December, his article “The Vocal Vibrato: New Directions” will appear in the Journal of Singing.  In 2009, Bärenreiter Verlag will publish his book “Techniques of Singing."