Nick Wales
Visceral, immersive and progressive, Nick Wales’s electronic classical compositions are internationally sought after. From empowering beauty to magnetising dark passages, Wales’s textural music has inspired creative leaders across contemporary dance, popular and classical music, film and theatre.
Wales’s name is synonymous with contemporary dance. He has scored several major Sydney Dance Company works in collaboration with Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela since 2012. His baroque-meets-electronica soundtrack for 2 One Another saw 100 performances worldwide and was followed by 2 in D Minor, Scattered Rhymes (with Tarik O’Reagan) and the jagged glitch and chilling vocals of Emergence, written in partnership with singer-songstress Sarah Blasko. Other recent commissions include collaborations with Marina Mascarelle for Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon and Marrugeku for Le Dernier Appel.
He has composed eight dance theatre pieces for Sean Parker and Company, including the Helpmann Award nominated AM I, The Yard, This Show is About People and the internationally performed Happy as Larry, Spill and Trollys.
Nick’s collaboration Nyapillilngu (Spirit Lady) with Aboriginal song man Rrawun Maymuru was featured in Sydney Dance Company’s 2017 production Ocho. Released internationally in 2020, the pair received the Indigenous Language Award at the 2020 National Indigenous Music Awards.
In 2019 Nick co-curated the soundscapes for the Powerhouse Museum’s retrospective exhibition Step Into Paradise featuring the fashion of Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson. 2020 has seen him return to the Powerhouse museum to co-create the musical score for the Maton Guitar exhibition with collaborators Stereogamous.
While Wales’s contemporary dance scores are both challenging and abstract, his pop sensibilities are undeniable. Traversing all genres as a founding member of ARIA nominated classical-fusion band CODA, he has also collaborated with Sarah Blasko for a number of years, writing the orchestral arrangements for her 2012 album I Awake and co-writing material and string arrangements for her albums on Eternal Return and Depth of Field.
Wales’s undergraduate studies in composition were completed at Sydney University under Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards and Anne Boyd. Nick holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Screen Composition from AFTRS.