He’ll lead Eastern Wind Symphony on Friday night in Princeton
By Chuck O’Donnell, Special Writer
From the first strains of “Dance of the Jesters” to the night’s last note, Todd Nichols will be swept up in the music.
The conductor’s arms will sometimes gyrate wildly, his torso will lurch forward from his podium and his body and soul will rise and fall with each piece of music.
And when his baton points toward the trumpeters and then the flutists and then the percussionists, he will be demanding more — more passion, more precision — at the Eastern Wind Symphony’s performance this Friday, March 28.
The Hillsborough resident and the rest of the musicians have a renewed spirit, a new selection of music ranging from marches to four-movement suites, and, most importantly, a new home. The 70 members will be joined by guest marimba soloist Greg Giannascoli when they play their first concert at the Richardson Auditorium in Princeton in what Nichols calls “a night to celebrate the rebirth of the Eastern Wind Symphony.”
”It’s a beautiful, beautiful concert hall,” Mr. Nichols said. “It’s architecturally and acoustically stunning. It’s going to be a magnificent place for the group to play. Mr. Nichols said the group was excited that the move to Princeton will allow the symphony to reach a wider, larger audience base.
”The audience will see a group of musicians who donate their time and talents to play a handful of concerts each year. Not only do they share a love for the art form and enjoy the creative spark ignited by playing with other professionals, but they are committed to supporting the symphony’s youth band.
Rebecca Gentile, the president of the symphony’s executive board and a clarinet player, says they are inspired by playing with a conductor who takes his job seriously. In fact, Mr. Nichols’ enthusiasm is the driving force behind the symphony’s renaissance.
”As a conductor, he’s more on the animated side of things,” she said. “Some of the movies (depicting conductors) overdo it a bit, but he’s definitely on the animated side of things. He’s definitely as into the music and expressing it as much from the podium as we are from our seats.”
Mr. Nichols draws a parallel between his role as conductor and what an offensive coordinator means to a football team. He’s the one who’s drawn up the plays, or in this case, he has picked the music. He’s carefully hand-picked the pieces — “Moon By Night” by Jonathan Newman and “Bullets and Bayonets” by John P. Sousa, amongst others — in hopes of engaging the musicians and the audience alike.
In other words, being a conductor “is the perfect connection between the teacher in me and the player in me,” he said. “It’s a conduit between the two.”
When Mr. Nichols took up drums as a boy, he couldn’t have known it would take him to so many places. The man with a master’s degree in performance conducting has collaborated with conductors (Eugene Migliaro Corporan and Mark Davis Scatterday), instrumental icons (trumpeter Phil Smith and trombonist Joe Alessi), jazz legends (Mike Vax and John Fedchock) and mainstream artists (Ray Charles and Marvin Hamlisch).
By day, he’s the director of bands at Roxbury High School, which has 235 students in its music programs. Maybe you caught them at halftime of the Super Bowl last month when they played with Bruno Mars.
Beth Nichols says music pervades almost every part of her husband’s life. They met at an audition. He sat in with the band at their wedding. His great-grandmother’s upright piano has a prominent place in their home, while a drum set has taken up residence in another room.
Beth, Todd and their children, Sarah, 9, and Emily, 6, have been known to have sing-a-longs around the dinner the table. “Music is just part of who he is,” she said. “It’s part of him. It’s part of everything that he does, in his enjoyment, his personality, obviously in his career. It’s just part of him.”
The zenith of his career was getting to Carnegie Hall. He has graced the famous stage three or four times as a conductor and twice as a percussionist, each time awed by the thought of the talented musicians who had stood in the same exact spot.
Mr. Nichols feels blessed to have ascended to the highest levels of his field by age 38. He lives for those elusive moments that often come out when he’s playing with the Eastern Wind Symphony. The music is blaring and he becomes lost in the performance and he can glimpse that seventh grader who had just discovered the joyous noise of banging on his first drum kit.
”There are those moments and I’ve been fortunate to have a few from conducting or playing, where you’re surrounded by incredible musicians and you’re playing together you have that moment that you’re reminded that I couldn’t imagine living a day without having music be part of my life,” he said.
”I just can’t imagine going through a day and not have this be what I’m doing.”

