Sam Nester

Sam Nester is an Australian-born, New York-based composer, sound artist, educator, and arts leader whose work explores the relationship between human systems and the natural world. Working across spatial sound, moving image, field recording, environmental data, installation, and live performance, he creates immersive works that make ecological processes perceptible through sound.

His work has been commissioned and presented internationally by institutions including Louvre Abu Dhabi, the European Commission, the U.S. Department of State, NYU Abu Dhabi, Colby College, George Mason University, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, NOWNESS, the National Parks Arts Foundation, and the City of Hobart.

Nester’s most recent work, Below the Line, was commissioned by Louvre Abu Dhabi for Spices and Wonders: Sailing the Indian Ocean. Combining three-channel moving image with an eight-channel spatial sound installation, the work draws on underwater imagery, hydrophone recordings, composition, and fieldwork to consider the Indian Ocean not simply as a site of human passage and exchange, but as a living system increasingly shaped by climate change and human activity.

Collaboration across disciplines is central to Nester’s practice. Since 2022, he has worked with scientists and policy officers from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and Directorate-General for Environment on projects exploring biodiversity, environmental change, technology, and the relationship between human and non-human systems. As the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at NYU Abu Dhabi’s Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, he developed projects with scientists working in genomics, coral ecology, ocean acoustics, and environmental adaptation. His recent works include Synocene, Anthos, and Cistern, a large-scale sound and light work created for Houston’s historic Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern.

Alongside his artistic practice, Nester has built a career in education, cultural leadership, and public engagement. He serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music, and chairs the Music Department at St. Hilda’s & St. Hugh’s School in New York. His work has encompassed curriculum and program development, artist and student mentorship, community engagement, interdisciplinary partnerships, and the design and leadership of arts education initiatives. He was previously Artistic Director of Bridge Arts Ensemble and Artistic Administrator of Community Engagement at The Juilliard School, and has contributed to international initiatives connecting creative practice and education with expanded access to artistic opportunity.

As a trumpeter, Nester has performed at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival and Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Kennedy Center, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, and the Festival of New Trumpet Music, as well as with the Paris Opera Ballet, Wordless Music Orchestra, Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and Mark Morris Dance Group.

A Fulbright Scholar, Nester holds a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music. His work increasingly moves between artistic practice, education, science, policy, and institutional leadership, creating structures through which artists and practitioners across disciplines can meet, exchange ideas, and develop new ways of understanding the world around us.