Bio/Contact

Artist Statement: 

It is my musical and artistic mission to compose music that is meaningful, uplifting and inspiring.  I began composing neo-classical music for my mother while she was terminally ill, as I had been reading about the healing properties of classical music and wished to ease her suffering through my compositions.  Though I do collaborate on songwriting, my classical compositions are very personal and sacred to me, and like my favorite great composers, it is a first principle of my art never to collaborate on my classical compositions, as it is an essentially individual fine art form.  I therefore reserve all rights to my music, stories and productions and I do not authorize any alterations, omissions nor additions to my compositions in any form.  In other words, my music must be performed as I have composed it or not at all.  After losing my mother to cancer it became my life's work to compose music that is healing to the soul. 

Bio: 

Nicholas Wing is a composer & songwriter based in Nashville, TN.  He has written songs for over 21 years and has composed symphonic music since 2008.  His compositional style is neo-classical and his works have been described as "lyrical, "beautiful" and "thematic".  Nicholas' works have been performed and recorded by professors, symphony orchestra musicians and classical music professionals.  Wing is a graduate of Ohio University and Case Western Reserve University, and though he lacks a degree in classical composition, his compositions have been well-received by audiences and classical musicians alike.  Wing is also self-taught on the piano, keyboard and violin, and he plans to play both the celesta and 2nd violin parts in the premiere performances of several of his compositions.  On March 27th, 2018, Nicholas Wing made his debut on the piano with featured soloists Carrie Wann Bailey, principal 2nd violin of the Nashville Symphony, and Tessa Loftis, Belmont University flautist, giving the world premiere performances of three of his compositions on the WPLN/91Classical Live in Studio C program: https://91classical.org/post/live-in-studio-c-nicholas-wing-and-friends/  It was deeply humbling for Wing's "Her Voice from the Shoah" for violin and piano piece to be premiered on the beautiful Weichold Violin from the "Violins of Hope" collection, which was once played by a member of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) who was rescued from the Shoah/Holocaust by the great violinist, humanitarian and founder of the IPO, Bronislaw Huberman. As a descendant of an early American family, Protestant Zionist Christian and neo-classical composer, Nicholas Wing has endeavored to use his compositional talents to compose music to intertwine the histories, special relationship and alliance between Israel and the United States.  Nicholas has also paid tribute to other U.S. allies, special relationships and Allied victories through his music.  It is Wing's artistic goal to compose beautiful music in the neo-classical idiom which resiliently celebrates American exceptionalism, and he characterizes his neo-classical compositional style as being "Beethoven and Mozart influenced, with a Yankee twist."

Nicholas was deeply inspired by the music and biographies of Sir Edward Elgar and Hector Berlioz, most especially in that Elgar was a self-taught composer and Berlioz was not a classically-trained pianist, yet both have made an indelible mark on the classical repertoire.  Wing often remarks that his initiation into the sphere of classical music began when he first heard the Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor performed by the Ohio University Orchestra and Shea Cole, soloist.  Wing has been privileged to have several of his unaccompanied cello works recorded by Professor Deidre Vaughn Emerson, Sari Reist and Michael Samis.  Among his greatest compositional influences are Ludwig van Beethoven, Joseph Haydn, Sir Edward Elgar, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Samuel Barber, Antonín Dvořák, Gustav Mahler, Hector Berlioz, Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Antonio Vivaldi, Aaron Copland and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. 

Wing has written songs for 21 years, and in 2012, his song “Good-bye Moon Pie” was selected among the top ten in the “Wake Up Nashville and Dream Big” songwriting contest benefiting Narcolepsy research.  He aspires to write songs that may one day become part of the American standard repertoire and aims to make his music universally appealing.  Though difficult to categorize, his songs are most influenced by the singer/songwriter, Americana, folk and country music traditions.  

Wing is also an amateur tenor soloist and made his debut with the BUMC Chancel Choir on April 14th, 2017 singing the lyric tenor solo from Dan Forrest's "Requiem for the Living."  Encouraged by the glowing compliments of several Ph.D.'s and M.D.'s in attendance regarding his debut performance, Wing hopes to perform Forrest's beautiful tenor solo again in the future, as well as selected works by his favorite great composers which feature a tenor soloist.  Nicholas is also a co-inventor of a Raman spectroscopy instrument (U.S. Pat. 9,291,550) with his former professor Dr. Brian Manhire, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering Ohio University, and he is enthusiastic about the inherent analogies between music and principles of Raman spectroscopy, including but not limited to resonance Raman spectroscopy, overtone spectroscopy and frequency notch & band pass filtration, etc..  In fact, Nicholas composed a symphonic tribute to Nobel Laureate C.V. Raman who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930, and whose scientific discovery made possible Wing's patented co-invention with Dr. Brian Manhire more than 80 years later.  Nicholas has also invented, though not yet patented multiple musical instruments, among other inventions. In tribute to a fellow inventor, Nicholas has also composed a piece in honor of Benjamin Franklin, titled "Franklin's First Invention", which is intended to musically portray the process of inspiration, invention and affirmation. Similarly, Wing's musical tribute to Nobel Laureate C.V. Raman is intended to pay tribute to the very moment at which Raman first observed the Raman Scattering Effect, which is named in his memory and honor.  

Nicholas absolutely believes in the transcendent power of music and its ability to uplift the soul and human spirit over all forms of tyranny.  He often refers to the biography of Austrian composer/conductor Herbert Zipper and Zipper’s secret orchestra in the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps, as well as his triumphant concert in the ruins of Manila in 1945 with Mrs. MacArthur seated in the front row.  

“The victory of music is at once a victory of the human spirit, for they are intertwined forever and inseparable.”  - Nicholas Wing

“The Candlelight Pas De Deux - Waltz" -  By Nicholas Wing, composer
Copyright 2015 Nicholas Wing.  All Rights Reserved.