On November 25, 2014, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University announced Sam Nichols as one of twelve composers to receive commissions for a work to be performed in 2015–16. Kurt Rohde won a Fromm commission in 2013, and Laurie San Martin in 2011. According to the Fromm Foundation’s press release:

“These commissions represent one of the principal ways that the Fromm Music Foundation seeks to strengthen composition and to bring contemporary concert music closer to the public.”

Sam Nichols has a first performance of his things that had no opposites—fragments from Tim Horvath for Soprano, Flute, Guitar, and Harp—with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, on their December 7 and 8 “Sung and Strummed” concerts (2014).