Upon her recital debut, Marilyn Nonken was heralded as "a determined protector of important music" (New York Times). Since then, she has been recognized as "one of the greatest interpreters of new music" (American Record Guide). Writes Fanfare: “Her voicings are exquisite, her pedaling throughout is a model to be studied, and, when necessary, her virtuosity is equaled only by the insight and passion with which every piece is imbued.” (2015) In 2006, she came to NYU Steinhardt as Director of Piano Studies. In 2022, she was appointed Chair of the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions, where she continues to teach.

As a pianist and Steinway Artist, she has been presented at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim Museum, Neue Galerie, and Roulette (New York), IRCAM, Reid Hall, and the Théâtre Bouffe du Nord (Paris), the ABC (Melbourne), Logos (Ghent), Instituto Chileno-Norteamericano (Santiago), Chicago Cultural Center and Symphony Center, Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia), Phillips Collection (Washington DC), Menil Collection and Rothko Chapel (Houston), and conservatories and universities around the world. A specialist in 20th- and 21st-century music, her wide-ranging discography includes more than 30 recordings, including her spectral trilogy for Divine Art – Tristan Murail: The Complete Piano Music, Voix Voilées: Spectral Music for Piano, and Hugues Dufourt: L’Origine du monde – two discs for Mode’s Feldman Edition (Triadic Memories and The Complete Works for Piano and Violoncello with Stephen Marotto), and Syncopated Musings: Rags, Concert Waltzes and Novelties for the Pianoforte by Scott Joplin and his Collaborators. Recent season highlights include performances of Charles Ives's "Concord" Sonata, Olivier Messiaen's concerto Oiseaux exotiques, Arnold Schoenberg's Der Buch des hängenden Gärten with soprano Deborah Norin-Kuehn, and works for piano with electronics by Jonathan Harvey, Alvin Lucier, and Ellen Fishman-Johnson.

A student of David Burge (The Eastman School) and Leonard Stein (Musikakademie Rheinsberg), Marilyn Nonken received a Ph.D. in musicology from Columbia University. Her monograph The Spectral Piano: From LIszt, Scriabin and Debussy to the Digital Age (Cambridge, 2015) was received as “a screaming success …. Few books can boast as much, and it is gratifying to encounter an international concert performer who can make so engaging a discourse around her core repertoire." (Tempo). Identity and Diversity in New Music: The New Complexities (Routledge) was published in July 2019. She has written chapters for Perspectives on the Performance of French Piano Music, Messiaen Perspectives, Messiaen in Context, and The Oxford Handbook of Spectral Music; served as a guest editor for Contemporary Music Review; and contributed articles to numerous journals.

Piano