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Dr. Larry Nickel is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre and an active choral clinician, adjudicator, teacher and music minister. He directs the Jubilate Vocal Ensemble and owns Cypress Choral Music Publishing, which currently promotes the music of 92 Canadian composers. Larry sang professionally with the Vancouver Chamber Choir (2007-2013)

Larry was a high school performing arts teacher for 25 years. He directed over 50 stage productions, including Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. In 1993 he won the International Association of Jazz Educators award for "outstanding service to jazz education." His choirs were selected two years in a row, 2001 and 2002, by Varsity Vocals' international search for the “Best of High School Choirs”.

In 2003 Larry took a leave from teaching to complete a DMA in composition.  Requiem for Peace, his doctoral thesis, is an extensive work for chorus and symphony orchestra in 13 languages – premiered by 330 musicians in 2005. In 2007, Bruce Pullan directed the work at the Orpheum Theatre with the Vancouver Bach Choir and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Jon Washburn (Vancouver Chamber Choir) premiered the new chamber version at the Chan Centre in November 2011. Since then, Requiem for Peace has received many performances; Toronto, Halifax, Guelph, Örebro, Magdeburg, Speinshart, Regensburg, Nördlingen, Bayreuth, etc.  Listen to a sample here.

Larry and Tony Funk founded the West Coast Mennonite Chamber Choir in 1990. This choir recorded 13 CDs, featuring luminaries like Edith Wiens and Ben Heppner and including 120 of Larry’s compositions.  CD sales garnered nearly a million dollars for the Communitas Supportive Care Society. Larry has ten publishers including Shawnee Press, Pavane, Oxford University Press  and G. Schirmer Publishing.