Nolan Gasser

Nolan Gasser is a composer, pianist, and musicologist – most notably, the architect of Pandora Radio’s Music Genome Project and the company’s chief musicologist from its founding in 1999. He holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from Stanford University. His original compositions have been performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall (Lincoln Center), the Kennedy Center, La Salle Pleyel (Paris), and the Rose Bowl (Pasadena), among many others. Theatrical projects include the musical Benny & Joon—which enjoyed a successful run at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego in fall 2017, and will next move to the famed Paper Mill Playhouse outside of New York City in spring 2019, on its hopeful way to Broadway; an opera, The Secret Garden, commissioned by San Francisco Opera (2013); an oratorio Repast: An Oratorio on the Life of Booker Wright (2015); and a musical, Start Me Up, in development. His film scoring work thus far includes Lance Kinsey’s mockumentary All Stars (2015), starring Fred Willard, Angela Kinsey, and John Goodman—winning numerous film festivals. Nolan’s forthcoming book, Why You Like It: The Science and Culture of Musical Taste, will be released in early 2019 (Macmillan Press). He is also the subject of a documentary for the ESPN-FiveThirtyEight series, The Collectors, entitled “Breaking Music Down to Its Genes” (2015). The film highlights his work with Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital to pilot an “algorithm” to provide personalized musical therapy for cancer patients. Nolan’s TEDx talk, “Empowering Your Musical Taste” is available on YouTube.