Eric Nathan spent part of his winter break at a mountain retreat in Italy, where he rang in the New Year with two poets who had fled Ukraine as refugees. The three of them gathered around a piano and played Amazing Grace together. That quiet moment became the seed of a violin concerto that premiered in Providence this fall as Nathan launched a new chapter of his career: the Rhode Island Philharmonic's first-ever composer in residence.
Nathan, an Associate Professor of Music at Brown University, began developing the piece, titled The Mountains We Climb, drawing on elements of the hymn he played that night, according to the Brown Daily Herald. Violinist Yevgeny Kutik gave the concerto's world premiere with conductor Ruth Reinhardt leading the Rhode Island Philharmonic, part of a consortium co-commission spanning eight regional orchestras nationwide, as reported by Classical Voice North America.
Nathan has described drawing on personal experiences and societal issues when he composes, and of the new work he said, “Perhaps the hardest mountain to climb is to truly see each other,” per the Brown Daily Herald's reporting. The score itself leans into that imagery musically: it is written for an expansive orchestra including contrabassoon, harp, four horns, and full percussion, and uses a sweeping “swoosh” gesture passed left to right across the ensemble to evoke shifting mountain weather and terrain, according to the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra.
A Three-Year Residency Rooted in Providence
Nathan assumed the three-year inaugural composer-in-residence post with the Rhode Island Philharmonic in September, and he has three projects planned for the appointment, the Brown Daily Herald reports. Beyond the violin concerto, he plans to compose a full symphony as well as a Requiem, with cellist Zlatomir Fung set to appear as soloist on the latter, the station's report notes, drawing on the same account already linked in the prior paragraph.
For the Requiem, Nathan plans to draw on ideas connected to loss, including the Dec. 13 mass shooting at Brown, and he intends to incorporate global thinking about gun violence in the United States into the piece, per the Brown Daily Herald. He has said his current pieces tend toward longer works, in contrast to many modern compositions that get shortened by rehearsal-time constraints.
Nathan will work with the Rhode Island Philharmonic's orchestra and music school as part of the residency, and he has said he hopes to connect students with music's creative aspects and teach them to compose their own pieces. “With all this, I am very busy, and have lots of music to write, but it's exactly the type of work I love to do,” he wrote, according to the Brown Daily Herald. He has also said his experiences living in Providence feed his musical inspiration, and that he views the new role as another way of connecting with audiences.
Bringing Students Into the Rehearsal Room
Ahead of the September premiere, Nathan brought students from his Introduction to Composition and Advanced Music Theory II courses at Brown to an open rehearsal at Providence's Veterans Memorial Auditorium, where they watched Reinhardt and the orchestra work through the score, according to Brown University. The orchestra performs its mainstage classical concerts at the historic 1,931-seat auditorium, and founded in 1945, the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra & Music School is the nation's largest combined professional orchestra and music school, per Go Providence.
Emily Dolan, chair of Brown's music department, described Nathan as deeply engaged in Brown's campus community and active beyond it, saying his engagement enriches the university's courses and events and makes Brown a more exciting place, per the Brown Daily Herald. Reinhardt, the Rhode Island Philharmonic's music director, said Nathan's proximity to the orchestra makes his position unique: he is a composer who lives locally, knows the audience and community, and understands what listeners will appreciate. The Brown Daily Herald also reports that Nathan has attended many of the orchestra's concerts over the years and knows its audience well.
Two Careers Converging in Rhode Island
Reinhardt herself is a relatively new figure at the Philharmonic's helm. The German conductor became the sixth music director in the orchestra's 80-year history for the 2025–2026 season, making her the first woman to hold the post, according to Bryant University.
Nathan arrives at the residency with a résumé built across New England's classical scene. Before the Rhode Island appointment, he completed a six-season tenure as Composer-in-Residence for the New England Philharmonic, where he wrote orchestral works and assisted with season programming, according to Eric Nathan's official site. He also took on the role of Artistic Director for the Boston-based contemporary ensemble Collage New Music for its 2024–2025 season.
His academic credentials span a D.M.A. from Cornell University, an M.M. from Indiana University, and a B.A. from Yale College, with honors including a 2013 Rome Prize, a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship, and Brown's own 2018 Henry Merritt Wriston Fellowship for teaching excellence, according to the Wind Repertory Project. In April, Orchid Classics released the portrait album Eric Nathan: Double Concertos, featuring his two double concertos and marking his recorded conducting debut, per Orchid Classics. With the symphony and Requiem still ahead, Nathan's Providence residency is only beginning, and the Brown courses he teaches, MUSC 1050 and MUSC 1100, remain where some of that work will keep finding its way back to students.
