Franz Nicolay was born and grew up in New Hampshire, where he began playing violin at age four and piano a year later. Luckily, he had an exceptionally supportive violin teacher, who let him play a piece of his own at his first violin recital in Concord at age five, thus launching his career, such as it is, as a composer.
In 1994, Nicolay attended the Berklee Summer Performance Program for jazz piano, and in 1995 entered the New York University jazz composition program, from which he graduated with honors in 1999. While at NYU, he studied primarily with Marc-Antonio Consoli, as well as Justin Dello Joio, Robert Rowe, Dafna Naphtali, Frank Kimbrough, Ted Nash, Ben Allison, Ron McClure, and others. In 1998, he was composer-in-residence with the NYU New Music & Dance Ensemble during a residency in Pisa, Italy; where selections from his quintet "...some time later, when the smoke had cleared..." were performed as part of their annual Strada Facendo arts festival. In 2000, dancer Diane Carroll choreographed her work Changes to his String Quartet No. 1.
Nicolay tours and performs in the US and Europe with various ensembles, including his own, now-defunct, experimental group the Suckers ("...a witches brew of tonal experimentation...puts the 'art' back into musical artist." - garageband.com), cabaret-punk collective the World/Inferno Friendship Society, and gypsy-klezmer group Guignol. He also plays with groups including the Dresden Dolls, Leftover Crack, and the Hold Steady. He works extensively as a producer, songwriter, and session musician; and writes for various film, television, dance, and theater projects. Franz was co-composer and musical director for Chelsea Bacon's "Breaker: An Aerial Fairy Tale", which combined original songs and underscoring with aerial acrobatics and storytelling ("a groovy orchestra" - Village Voice; "magical songs...perhaps the most delightful addition to the work" - showbusinessweekly.com).
In 2001, Nicolay organized "An Afternoon of Anti-Social Chamber Music" at Columbia University, a program of new music from emerging New York-based composers. The success of this concert led to the founding of Anti-Social Music, a non-profit new-music collective of composers and performers that presents concerts of premieres by emerging composers, in venues both conventional and urine-stained (www.antisocialmusic.org).
Photo by Konstantin Sergeyev.