Australian born trumpet player Sam Nester leads a diverse career as a performer and educator. Nester has performed for Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival & Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, BAM Next Wave Festival, the Paris Opera Ballet, Wordless Music Orchestra, Mark Morris Dance Group and the Festival of New Trumpet Music among others. Nester has premiered works by Pulitzer Prize winning composer John Luther Adams, John Cale (Velvet Underground), and John Zorn. In 2019, Nester was the Bruny Island Foundation artist-in-residence, creating site-specific recordings inside the island’s iconic lighthouse. In 2020, he partnered with George Mason University (USA) to design a yearlong interactive light and sound installation for their Virginia campus. In collaboration with visual artist Caroline Rannersberger, architect Christopher Clinton, and plant ecologist Daniel Sprod, Nester created a public art and sound installation based on his Arcadia project for the City of Hobart (Australia). In 2021, he was the artist-in-residence for Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, and was commissioned by Colby College to design a new environmental sound and light installation for the opening of their Greene Block + Studios center for innovation in the arts. Nester has been a Fulbright Scholar, a recipient of the Australian Music Foundation Award, Brian Boak Outstanding Performer Award and an American Australian Association’s Dame Joan Sutherland Fund grantee. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music Studies from the Queensland Conservatorium and Bachelor of Music from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (First Class Honors). He received a Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music, earning the Helen Cohn Award for outstanding performance.