Șerban Nichifor OCB (born 25 August 1954) is a Romanian composer, cellist and music educator.
Șerban Nichifor was born on 25 August 1954 to Ermil Nichifor (1916–1997) and Livia Nichifor, née Balint (1922–2017) in Bucharest, Romania. Both his parents were physicians. His father was also a musician and conductor of the Orchestra of Physicians in Bucharest.
Nichifor studied at the National University of Music Bucharest from 1973 to 1977 and took composition courses in 1978, 1980 and 1984 in Darmstadt, Germany. In 1994, he received a Ph.D. in Musicology from National University of Music and from 1990 to 1994, also studied at the Theology Faculty of the University of Bucharest. In 2015, he was awarded a PhD summa cum laude in conducting , and wrote a thesis SHOAH – The Holocaust Reflected in My Musical Creation.
He has composed many works dedicated to the victims of The Holocaust. According to musicologist Octavian Cosma, Nichifor’s eclectic style is based on neoromanticism but has included elements of jazz (in his Third and Fourth Symphonies) and the use of tape recordings as in his opera Domnişoara Cristina. In the 1990s, he “developed a simplified style employing themes reminiscent of Byzantine chant.”
Nichifor is a professor at National University of Music. He married the late Romanian musician and composer Liana Alexandra in 1978. They performed together as cellist and pianist in the Duo Intermedia from 1990 and were co-directors of the Nuova Musica Consonante – Living Music Foundation Festival.
Among Nichifor’s prizes and honors are the 1977 Gaudeamus International Composers Award and the Belgian Order of the Crown (conferred in 2008).