Nickrenz was an influential violist and director of chamber music, holding positions at NEC, Spoleto and most recently the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston
Scott Nickrenz died on 17 March 2025 at the age of 87. Nickrenz was a violist, serving on the faculty at New England Conservatory (NEC) for many years, as well as a director and curator of chamber music at numerous festivals and institutions.
Nickrenz began his musical journey in Buffalo, NY, starting lessons on piano, then violin. After switching to viola at the recommendation of his teacher, Alexander Schneider, Nickrenz attended the Curtis Institute of Music on a scholarship.
He became a fellow at Tanglewood, where he worked with musicians such as Elliott Carter, Leon Kirchner, Gunther Schuller, John Cage and Aaron Copland.
As a chamber musician, Nickrenz co-founded the Lenox and Vermeer string quartets and the Orpheus Trio. He served on the NEC faculty and was director of chamber music from 1973 to 1979. From 1990 to 1998 he served as advisor to the conservatory’s then-president Laurence Lesser.
He frequently appeared as a guest violist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from 1972 until 1989.
Nickrenz was a prolific director of chamber music, holding such post at the Brooklyn Academy of Music from 1975 for 13 years. He became director of chamber music for the Spoleto Festivals in 1978, in both editions in Italy and Charleston, SC. He also served as director of chamber music for the New World Symphony.
He curated a the concert programming at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for 26 years, contributing significantly to the venue’s design and construction. Wanting the musicians and audience to experience the music together at the venue, he proposed a cube that placed players at the centre with the listeners surrounding them on all four sides.
On the eve of his retirement from the museum in 2017, Nickrenz reflected on the venue’s boz-shaped Calderwood Hall, saying ’It’s like my whole life, my whole career was aiming for the “sonic cube”… I’m so proud of it.’
Nickrenz mentored many talented musicians. ’One of the reasons I’m useful on this earth is I spend my life helping people younger than me,’ he said in an interview in 2017. His connections included Nicholas Kitchen, violinist of the Borromeo Quartet, which became one of the Gardner Museum’s resident music ensembles.
Numerous musicians paid tribute to Nickrenz during his final days. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, with whom Nickrenz had worked during a Harvard University summer session and who had recommended him for the Gardner Museum’s curator position, played Bach at Nickrenz’s bedside. Violinist Joshua Bell Facetimed from Rome, while the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet performed music by Liszt.
Nickrenz is survived by his wife, flutist Paula Robison, and his daughters: pianist Erika Nickrenz and psychologist and singer-songwriter Elizabeth Nickrenz Fein. He is also survived by his sister Nola Allen and grandson Zachary Herman.
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