Nick Vasallo

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Nick Vasallo began music in high school where he picked up the electric guitar and eventually formed Antagony, an influential extreme metal band in the underground. At the ripe age of 23, Vasallo decided to begin formal music training at Cal State East Bay where he obtained his Bachelor degree in 2007. As a Chancellor's Fellow at University of California Santa Cruz, Vasallo went on to complete his Masters in 2009 and is currently a President's Fellow and Doctoral candidate in Composition and World Music where he has studied with composers: Hi-Kyung Kim, Paul Nauert, and David Cope. Vasallo currently studies privately with David Evan Jones.

His music reveals an eclectic array of influences: Metal, Ambient, Taiko, Gamelan, Noise and has been internationally performed by world renown groups such as Contemporary Music Ensemble Korea, Del Sol String Quartet, San Francisco Choral Artists, Atlanta Schola Cantorum, and Watsonville Taiko just to name a few. Currently, Vasallo is working with the esteemed BluePrint ensemble as well as collaborating with one of the biggest acts in extreme metal today - All Shall Perish.

In 2010, Vasallo was the recipient of the President's Dissertation-Year Fellowship Award - the first arts student to ever receive that honor. Other honors and awards include: 2011 MACRO Composition award, 2009 San Francisco Choral Artists New Voices Award, The Seattle Pianist Collective 2008 selection, 2008 UCSC Student Orchestral Composition winner, 60x60 project - Pacific Rim Mix 2008-2009 selection, The 2008 David Cope Award for Music Composition Excellence, 2005 New Jersey International Film Festival Selection "Sinful" musical score, and 2007 CSUEB Student Composers Competition winner.