NMBC | Nicole Bettencourt Coelho | they/them
Nicole Bettencourt Coelho delves into embodied research towards methodologies for deeper intimacy between body, instrument, sound and space. With a particular focus on understanding somatic desire and movement in relationship to performance with music technologies, and exploring ways in which collaborative practice can be held with care, to preserve emergence and liveness through experimental frameworks for improvisation and channelling. Through their practice and research, they work across live performance, spatial audio, and screendance to investigate non-rational modes of knowing within and beyond academic contexts.
With a background in somatic-based therapy, Nicole’s practice moves fluidly between performance and research environments. Their work has been presented at Somerset House (London), Café Oto (London), Barbican (London), Royal Albert Hall (London), Brixton Academy (London), MONOM (Berlin), IRCAM / Centre Pompidou (Paris), La Cigale (Paris), CBGB (New York), Ciné Joia (São Paulo), Circo Voador (Rio de Janeiro), Saeva Dupka Cave (Bulgaria), Glastonbury Festival (UK), The Warped Tour (USA), BBC Radio 4 and 6 (UK), Later…with Jools Holland (UK).
Nicole is currently lead professor of Live Electronics at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and occasional guest professor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. They devise and direct work with interdisciplinary ensembles; founding the Guildhall School’s Live Electronics Orchestra in 2024, which explores collective electric / electronic music-making to re-negotiate power structures between performers, composer, conductor, and score, within ensemble works. Collaborating closely with choreography and movement artists to dissolve conductor and score into somatics and dance, and to diffuse immediate expressive agency throughout the ensemble as a whole. In 2026 they started Bodies Electric, a Live Electronics performance research platform at Horse Hospital, for experimental composers and instrument-makers to collaborate with musicians from Guildhall School’s Electronic and Produced Music Department.
Contact :
nicole.bettencourtcoelho@gsmd.ac.uk
lead professor of live electronics
Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Electronic and Produced Music Department