"Spirit of the 10th" with Chants

CARLO NICOLAU

Carlo Nicolau is a New York City based composer, violinist, pianist and producer. He recently won a 2017 TELLY award and also performed with his multimedia project Paisajes Sonoros, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and at the Queens Museum in NY. His new album of original compositions “Music For The Moving Imagination” was released in late 2017 on vinyl by the Discos Mono label and also independently on the digital platform BandCamp.

After studying at the National Conservatory in Tours, France at a very young age, he returned to Mexico City at age 17 as a musical hybrid: playing violin in top professional symphony and chamber orchestras, and as the founder, violinist, pianist and composer for the legendary chamber rock ensemble Nazca.

Carlo moved to New York in 1988 and, from 1990-94 he formed a progressive rock band performing at venues such as Knitting Factory. He also began composing and producing music for advertising, and won the opportunity to score the music for a Bud Light campaign that would air on US TV during the 1994 soccer World Cup, winning a CLIO award and leading Carlo to open Big Rumble Music in 1995 and then Razorhead Music, a music production company dedicated to writing music for television, film, and radio, in 2001.He has penned over 300 TV spots for clients such as Coca Cola, Pepsi, Budweiser, Ford Motor Co., Heineken, Crown Royal, Pantene, Corona, ESPN, Mars Chocolates, History Channel, Telemundo, Daimler- Chrysler, Nissan, and JC Penney, in addition to composing music for the Children’s Television Workshop/ Sesame Street project A is for Asthma, for which Carlo won both a NY Film Festival Award, and an Aurora Gold World Medal Award.

As a film composer, Carlo co-wrote the original music for the feature film Santitos (winner at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival), under Director Alejandro Springall and Executive Producer John Sayles (the American indie film icon). He also composed the score for the independent feature film Fast Horses in 2000 under Director Dominic Engel, starring late Victor Argo (of Casino, King of New York, and other films). Carlo has scored a wide variety of short films as well.

Carlo has also received grants from The Rockefeller Foundation and Meet the Composer in support of his work with internationally renowned modern dance choreographers such as Stephen Petronio, amongst others. The resulting performances have been presented at Lincoln Center and at numerous prestigious venues in NY and Mexico.

As a guest musician on the violin, he performs regularly with a wide variety of New York world music, Latin and Indie rock bands, including the legendary Violent Femmes.