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FULL BIOGRAPHY

Composer and cellist Nancy Ives is “one of Oregon’s most prominent and accomplished classical musicians” (The Oregonian). She enjoys an illustrious performance career that informs her eloquent and enduring compositional style. Long recognized for her deep commitment to new music, Ives has developed a body of work that reflects a sustained engagement with the natural world, history, and human relationships to place. Her adventurous and multifaceted career includes more than twenty-five years as Principal Cellist of the Oregon Symphony, collaborations with virtually all of the region’s premier performance organizations, and a history of service within the cultural community.

COMPOSITION

Drawing inspiration from the natural world, Ives creates music that is both approachable and richly layered, capturing a style that feels distinctly Oregonian. Her music features in recent and upcoming performances by the Oregon Symphony, Denver Philharmonic Orchestra - International Conductor's Workshop, Orchestre National de Bretagne, Northwest Sinfonietta, Lake Chelan Bach Festival Orchestra, Greater Rochester Women’s Philharmonic, Yakima Symphony, York Symphony, the Portland Chamber Orchestra, Alaska Resounding, Fear No Music, Siletz Bay Music Festival, Portland Cello Project, and Friends of Rain as well as broadcasts on All Classical Radio and KBBI (Alaska). Recent residencies include Friends of Pando (2024-25), the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium (2025), and the Lake Chelan Bach Festival (2025). Ives’s music frequently draws inspiration from environmental systems and the cultural narratives embedded within them. Works such as …black snow, dark ocean… (2019), inspired by Inuit accounts of climate change in the Arctic, and Pando, a portrait of the world’s largest tree, reflect her interest in ecological interconnectedness. Committed to creating music of consequence, Ives works with Indigenous communities to authentically capture, amplify, and relay their stories to wider audiences. For example, her recent multimedia orchestral work, Celilo Falls, premiered by the Oregon Symphony in June 2025, represents the culmination of six years of collaboration with writer Ed Edmo (Shoshone/Bannock) and photographer Joe Cantrell (Cherokee). Developed through song settings, chamber and orchestral versions, and interdisciplinary exchange, the work honors the cultural and environmental legacy of Celilo Falls and its enduring significance. She is a Musical America New Artist of the Month (September 2024).

PERFORMANCE

In addition to her role as Principal Cellist of the Oregon Symphony, Ives is a member of the Palatine Trio, the Rose City Trio, and the trailblazing ensemble, Fear No Music. She has also appeared with Chamber Music Northwest, Third Angle, Portland Piano International, the Oregon Bach Festival, Portland Cello Project, 45th Parallel Universe, and in solo concerto performance with the Oregon Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Portland Columbia Symphony, Clark College Orchestra, and Cascade Festival of Music, “demonstrating with attentive grace that technically challenging and sonically difficult music can still be beautiful.” (Oregon ArtsWatch) A regular performer in live radio broadcast on All Classical Portland’s Thursdays @ Three, she was also the “Cellist in Residence” for a year on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s arts news magazine State of Wonder. 

RECORDING AND CROSS-GENRE WORK

Her recordings appear on the Opus One and Koch labels, and she has contributed to PBS and Smithsonian soundtracks. Ives has performed with Laurie Anderson, Gal Costa, and Lenny Kravitz, and appeared in Off-Broadway productions and national tours, combining performance with theatrical and multimedia elements.

HISTORY

Having received a DMA from the Manhattan School of Music, Ives thrived in New York City where she was Principal Cello and a founding member of the Grammy-nominated Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, and Principal Cello of the American Chamber Opera Company. She was a regular recitalist at the Friends of the Arts Beethoven Festival and the Apollo Muses Festival in New Jersey, and in addition to performing the standard concerto repertoire with orchestras in the Northeast and the Midwest, she premiered her own composition Dialogue III for cello and orchestra with the Danbury Community Orchestra. Her rich history of new music performance includes membership in the North-South Consonance and Musicians' Accord, through which she gave over one hundred premieres by such illustrious composers as Milton Babbitt, Chen Yi and Bruce Adolphe.

SERVICE

An enthusiastic teacher and mentor, Ives served as an Instructor of Chamber Music at Lewis & Clark College for more than a decade. As a co-founder of Classical Up Close, she provides greater community access to music, bringing intimate performances to the places where people live, work, and play. Ives serves on the Board of Directors for All Classical Radio and Resonance Ensemble, and is a past board member of the Oregon Cello Society and the Oregon Symphony. She is the Founder and Director of Mahonia Music, a record label and publishing company that champions voices of the Pacific Northwest.

Biography by Aligned Artistry