About

Thomas Nicholson is a Berlin-based Canadian composer whose work centres on just intonation. Combining rigorous theoretical and formal research with intuitive, practice-based experimentation, he seeks out points of contact in his music between acoustics, perception, and musical expression.

He studied composition with Christopher Butterfield at the University of Victoria and later with Marc Sabat at the Universität der Künste Berlin. His long-standing collaboration with Sabat has led to a number of artistic and scholarly projects, including in-depth work on tuning theory and music notation. In 2020, they undertook a major revision and expansion of the Helmholtz–Ellis Just Intonation Pitch Notation (HEJI), originally developed by Sabat and Wolfgang von Schweinitz in the early 2000s. The updated system is now widely used across Europe and North America as a standard for notating music in extended just intonation.

Since 2014, his compositions have focused increasingly on the inherently microtonal qualities of just intonation. His work often draws from his interests in mathematics, physics, psychoacoustics, music history, and philosophy, as well as the visual clarity of graphic design. He is particularly drawn to intimate musical contexts, frequently writing for small ensembles of two to four performers, in which finely tuned relationships between tones become especially vivid.

In addition to composing, he develops tools and pedagogical materials to support musicians working with similar practices, addressing the conceptual and practical considerations of performing microtonal music on acoustic music. As a violist, he is a member of Harmonic Space Orchestra.