The Nature of Music 22: Christopher Shultis

On Wednesday, December 2, 2026, at 7:30 pm at the Littlefield Concert Hall at Mills College at Northeastern University, Other Minds welcomes percussionist, composer, professor, and academic Christopher Shultis.

Beginning with the performance of an early work, Metaphysics (1992), and concluding with a performance by celebrated Italian percussionist Simone Mancuso of its companion piece One Far Noise (2016), featuring a new video by Hee Sook Kim, Christopher Shultis will discuss the important role nature has played in his music and life. Shultis will present examples of his music that respond to the natural world, opening with a moment in his “a little light, in great darkness” (1995-2000) that uses a leaf pattern he saw on a plant found on Ezra Pound’s grave. More recently, his work attends to the healing power of taking long walks: first in the woods around Tübingen and Heidelberg in Germany, then in the Sandia and Manzano mountains just outside Albuquerque, and finally in the high mountain wilderness around Taos, New Mexico. It is in Taos that seeds were planted for a long-term project, beginning in 2003 and ending in 2016, of composing Waldmusik, his most recent recording on Neuma Records. The talk takes the audience from the German woods to the mountains of New Mexico and South Korea, then to the woods in Pennsylvania, and full circle back to Germany and a walk on the Philosophenweg near Heidelberg where One Far Noise was composed.

This concert is the 22nd edition of Other Minds’s The Nature of Music series, made possible through generous support from the EarthWays Foundation.

Parking

Public parking is indicated on the campus access map below. The best areas for the Concert Hall are:

Richards Rd (which runs along in front of the hall)
Richards Lot (to the right immediately upon passing the entrance gate)
Lisser Lot
Cowell Lot
We are unable to reserve parking. There is one ADA spot on Richards Rd, two ADA spots in Lisser lot.

Accessibility
The Theater is fully compliant with ADA regulations. Any questions or needs can be directed to [email protected].

Publishing Website for Christopher Shultis

Christopher Shultis is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico where he taught percussion, composition, and musicology. Awarded two Fulbrights to Germany in the 1990s, he also served as Regents’ Professor of Music and in 2010 gave the 55th Annual Research Lecture: “the highest award UNM bestows upon its faculty members.” Shultis divides his time between composition and writing; his scholarly work on John Cage is internationally recognized. His work as a creative artist and scholar frequently draws on his past as an orchestral and solo percussionist and conductor of the University of New Mexico Percussion Ensemble, where he worked closely with many composers including Lou Harrison, Konrad Boehmer, John Cage, Michael Colgrass, James Tenney, and Christian Wolff—the latter two writing music dedicated to the ensemble. As a composer, Shultis originally wrote experimentally conceptual pieces often performed by himself, collected in a book by the American Composers Alliance, with a shift to more fully-notated work in the mid-1990s. Devisadero: Music from the New Mexico Wilderness (Navona Records) features music written from 1995-2007, An Illusion of Desire: Experimental Music by Christopher Shultis 1988-1992, is available through Neuma Records, as is his newest release Waldmusik. His work has been commissioned by pianists Curt Cacioppo (2010) and Emanuele Arciuli (2015); percussionists Simone Mancuso (2016) and Ray Dillard (2020); the Lugano Percussion Ensemble (2022), the Oberlin Percussion Group (2020), the Akros Percussion Collective (2017), and three times (2010, 2018, 2025) by the Gyeonggi Gayageum Ensemble. He collaborates frequently with visual artist Hee Sook Kim and much of their work can be found on YouTube. Un/sounding the Self (2018), a documentary about his creative work, paired with Wandelweiser composer Craig Shepard, was nominated for Best Medium or Feature Film by the Cinalfama Lisbon International Film Awards Festival. Shultis has always considered himself an experimental composer, regardless of medium, and his inspiration often comes from long walks in mountains and woods.

Simone Mancuso is a percussionist and conductor specializing in contemporary music, internationally recognized for his interpretations of modern and experimental repertoire. He received the Kranichstein-Stipendienpreise from the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (2002) and First Prize from the Stockhausen Stiftung für Musik (2005), personally awarded by Karlheinz Stockhausen, who later named him a recommended performer of his works. Mancuso has performed across Europe, Asia, and the Americas at venues and festivals including the Kennedy Center, Blues Alley, Strathmore Hall, the Martha Argerich Project, and PASIC. He has collaborated with leading composers and performers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Salvatore Sciarrino, Alvin Curran, Klaus Huber, Chaya Czernowin, Christopher Shultis, Martha Argerich, and many others. His recordings appear on DECCA Classics, Deutsche Grammophon, Stradivarius, Col Legno, and other labels. He is principal conductor of the Lugano Percussion Ensemble and co-founder of the Mancuso–Suzda Project, a jazz/classical crossover duo. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, he teaches percussion at Arizona State University, where he directs the Arizona Contemporary Music Ensemble, co-directs the Contemporary Percussion Ensemble, and is Founder and Artistic Director of the PRISMS Contemporary Music.