Nick DePinna

San Francisco bay area native turned Los Angeles resident and enthusiast, composer and trombonist Nick DePinna studied music composition at UCLA, completing his M.A. in 2010. During his time at UCLA, his mentors included James W. Newton, Paul Chihara, David Lefkowitz, and Kenny Burrell among others.

As a composer of concert, film, and commercial music, his output is wildly diverse. His creative concert works and large ensemble arrangements are performed with increasing regularity by various professional ensembles and universities across the nation, while at the same time his music for visual media can be heard frequently on such networks as ABC, FOX, HBO, National Geographic WILD, VH-1, and CMT. When not composing music of his own, he arranges and orchestrates for an increasing number of hollywood composers.

Also a versatile trombonist, Nick has performed, toured, and/or recorded with a large variety of groups, including Kenny Burrell’s Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, the Billy Vaughn Orchestra, the Jon Jangtet, the John Daversa Big Band, the Tom Kubis Big Band, the Mike Barone Big Band, the Roger Neumann Rather Large Band, the Long Beach Opera, the Pasadena Pops, and co-leads his own jazz orchestra, “Jazz Nexus.” He has also recorded and performed with the likes of Dee Dee Bridgewater, Bobby Caldwell, Dream Theater, Paloma Faith, Herbie Hancock, Hubert Laws, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kenny Loggins, M83, Bobby Rodriguez, Dianne Schuur, Wayne Shorter, Moses Sumney, The Temptations, and Gerald Wilson.

Nick is a co-founder of “L.A. Signal Lab,” a new-music collective focused on the intersection of notated and improvised music. He is also a co-founder and director of the culinary concert series, “Sensus.”