Date: Wednesday September 8th at 11AM PST
Nicolas Reveles
Nicolas Reveles is best known as a pianist, composer, opera coach and lecturer. He recently received certification as a Somatic Sex Educator and Sexological Bodyworker and has established a studio for his practice in San Diego, California. A California native, he has been a practicing musician his entire life. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University of San Diego, a Master’s in Music with a specialty in choral conducting from the University of Redlands and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music. He has been an associate professor of music at his alma mater, USD, an adjunct lecturer at San Diego State University and most recently the Director of Education and Community Engagement for San Diego Opera, a position he enjoyed for 20 years prior to his retirement in 2018.
As a pianist he has performed throughout the world, most notably as the pianist for Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project between 1992 and 1998. He has performed countless recitals and concerts in the Southern California area, along with chamber music recitals with the Alcala and Bonita Trios. He has also collaborated in performance with singers such as Ferruccio Furlanetto, Carol Neblett, Ailyn Perez, Giuseppe Filianoti, Marianne Cornetti and Stephen Costello.
As a composer Reveles has composed six operas, the children’s operas The Sleeping Beauty (2005) and Rumpelstiltskin (2008), commissioned by San Diego Opera for the San Diego Opera Ensemble, and Sextet, a queer opera (2010), a commission funded by the Irvine Foundation for Diversionary Theatre, San Diego’s LGBTQ theatre organization. More recently he has completed a one-act opera with librettist Michael Vegas Mussman, Take Care of Him, (2018) which will be produced by San Diego Opera in October 2022 along with his fifth opera, Ghosts (2020), another one-act opera for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble to his own libretto. His sixth opera, Aftermath, also to his own libretto, will be produced by Bodhi Tree Concerts at the San Diego Fringe Festival in the summer of 2022. He has also composed scores and created sound designs for the Old Globe Theatre, North Coast Repertory Theatre and Arizona Repertory Theatre. His mariachi score for Beaumarchais’ The Marriage of Figaro for the Arizona Repertory Theatre in 1992 was named ‘Musical of the Year’ by The Arizona Republic.
Reveles’ spiritual journey led him to the Catholic priesthood for which he was ordained in 1974. He resigned from the priestly ministry in 1990 but continued to search for understanding and enlightenment in this important area of his life. This led him to the Body Electric School and eventually to the vocation he now practices as a Somatic Sex Educator and Sexological Bodyworker. His focus is helping people, especially gay men, to recover from the trauma imposed on our bodies by culture, church, and family in a centuries-old attempt to control sexuality and sexual expression. He has developed Body Prayer to reclaim the sacred for our Erotic Bodies.
His passions include California native plants and cycling. His Bonita garden El Jardin de Marta, was a featured installation twice on the California Native Plant Society’s annual garden tour (2015 & 2017). In 2013 he participated at the annual Senior Games in Cleveland, Ohio in the national cycling time-trials and completed the 545-mile AIDS/LifeCycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in June 2018.
Join the Email List