A composition for solo piano by Nailah Nombeko
Developed through the 2025 Summer Composing Mentorship
Mentored by Soheil Shirangi
Piano:Qin Lan Zhang
Published by Zang Records in September 2026
Saudade is a Portuguese word describing melancholic longing—homesickness. The opening idea is repeated in variation throughout, with new ideas being woven in, but there’s always a “pulling back” to the opening theme. The anchor never really moves and sometimes the idea returns as more of a memory. No matter what new places the music travels to there is always an intense longing to return home.
American Prize finalist Nailah Nombeko is a native New Yorker whose music has been performed throughout the United States at venues including Symphony Space, Columbia University, the University of Kansas, the University of Kentucky, the International Double Reed Conference at the University of Colorado, National Sawdust, Annapolis Opera, and Portland Opera. International performances of her work have taken place in the Netherlands with soprano Marijke Groenendaal and in England at the Royal Northern College of Music. Her compositions have also been performed by artists including Kearstin Piper Brown, Maria Brea, Karen Slack, Kara Dugan, and Jennifer Sgroe.
Nombeko has received commissions from the Maryland Opera Studio, the Ethel Quartet, Intersection Music for oboist Jared Hauser, Ex-Aequo’s “Changing the Canon” project, the Skaneateles Music Festival, and the Wollman-Brea-Baitel Trio for its “Becoming America” project. In 2022, Nombeko was one of ten composers selected for the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Composer Mentor Program. Through the program, she was commissioned to compose a new work for countertenor, which premiered in the summer of 2023. She has also written music for the PBS documentary Buildings and Moods.
In 2023, soprano Emily Albrink’s album Force of Nature reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Music Chart. The recording features Nombeko’s song cycle Facets of Womanhood, with texts by Mary McCallum. That same summer, her work Fortitude, which explores the life of Harriet Tubman through texts by Alicia Haymer, premiered at the Skaneateles Music Festival with soprano Kearstin Piper Brown. Nombeko’s music is also featured on the Wollman-Brea-Baitel Trio album Becoming America. She is a member of the African American Art Song Alliance and New York Women Composers. Her song “Nobody Knows” is published by E.C. Schirmer.