As a composer and producer of both concert and commercial music, Nick DePinna’s output is wildly diverse. His creative concert works are performed with increasing regularity across the United States, while at the same time his music for visual media can be heard on 1000+ films and episodes of television across networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, HBO, ESPN, A&E, BBC, National Geographic WILD, VH-1, Hallmark, CMT, Netflix, and Disney+.
His arrangements, orchestrations, and transcriptions have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, the Riverside Symphonia, the Hollywood Jazz Orchestra, the Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland, MUSE/IQUE, the MESTO Orchestra, the Laguna Beach Pageant of the Masters, the Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited, and have been recorded for many albums and film scores.
His 2019 debut EP of progressive big band music, Nexus Music, Vol. 1 (Orenda Records), was met with critical acclaim for both DePinna as a “splendid writer and arranger with an advanced point of view,” as well the “yeomanlike work of his excellent ensemble” (Jack Bowers, All About Jazz). Most recently, his commercial big band music was featured in Sony Interactive Entertainment’s 2022 video game, Gran Turismo 7.
Also a versatile trombonist, DePinna has performed, toured, and/or recorded with a large variety of groups, including the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Kenny Burrell’s Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited, the Jon Jangtet, Justo Almario’s Afro-Colombian Ensemble, the John Daversa Big Band, Remy Le Boeuf’s Assembly of Shadows, the Billy Vaughn Orchestra, the Mike Barone Big Band, the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, the Long Beach Opera, and the Pasadena Pops Orchestra. He has also recorded and/or performed with Dream Theater, Paloma Faith, Moses Sumney, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kenny Loggins, M83, Bobby Caldwell, Dianne Schuur, and The Temptations.
A protégé of James W. Newton Jr., DePinna also trained in Western Art Music composition with David Lefkowitz, Paul Chihara, and Ian Krouse, while simultaneously receiving mentorship from American artists of the African musical diaspora including Kenny Burrell and Jon Jang. He is a co-founder of “L.A. Signal Lab,” a new-music collective focused on the intersection of notated and improvised music.
