Nathan Clevenger is an Oakland-bred and -based composer, guitarist, and pianist, working on the margins of new music, and free improvisation.

Since 2003, Nathan’s main musical outlet has been the cryptically-titled Nathan Clevenger Group. The group has performed over 120 original compositions and recorded 3 albums, including Stateless, scheduled to be released in 2019. Gigs of note include appearances at the Switchboard Music Festival, SF Friends of Chamber Music SFMusic Day, and the SF Center for New Music’s Best Coast Composer Series (in a program also featuring premiere of the extended quartet piece “The Seamless Sea”). The Group is currently comprised of Kasey Knudsen, Cory Wright, Beth Schenck, Lisa Mezzacappa, Jon Arkin (drums), Jason Levis, and Tim DeCillis.

In 2021, Nathan formed a new trio with Jordan Glenn (percussion) and Cory Wright (reeds). The trio has performed at Indexical (Santa Cruz), sfSound's Mosswood Chamber Series (Oakland), and as part of the online Unsolitary series. An album, Late Arcade, is due in fall 2022.

Clevenger is also involved in composing and recording music for film in collaboration with violinist/composer Kristina Dutton. Their evening length multimedia work Ice Hours -- created in collaboration with visual artists Kim Miskowicz and Camille Seaman and supported by a Fleishhacker Foundation grant -- was premiered at San Francisco’s Exploratorium in March 2019. Clevenger and Dutton’s work has focused heavily on science education and has been presented at the UC Berkeley’s Vision + Light symposium and the LAST Science and Art Technology Festival.

Other active ensembles include the avant chamber ensemble Ashen Cleric (with Crystal Pascucci, Cory Wright, Jordan Glenn, and Tim DeCillis), the sci-fi-chamber-rock band Elective Infinities (w Sarah Zaharako, Eric Perney, Phillip Greenlief and Robert Lopez), and the ever-mutating quartet project Book of Exits. In addition to continuing to produce works for a growing book of chamber music, Nathan has also been honored to collaborate with Bay Area jazz luminaries and groups, including Aaron Novik (Cutting Guard, “The Samuel Suite”, etc), Karl Evangelista (as part of the Host Family quartet), Phillip Greenlief, Jason Levis (Joseph’s Bones), Lisa Mezzacappa, Jordan Glenn, and Mitch Marcus.