About

Nicolas Maldonado is a Los Angeles based saxophonist, composer and arranger. Nicolas has performed with the likes of Bennie Maupin, Les McCann and Nicole Mitchel, was selected for the 2015 Catalina Jazz Young Artist Series and has led various self started projects, the most recent being the chamber-jazz ensemble Glass Bead. Glass Bead recorded its debut self titled EP in 2019, followed by the Dayspring EP in 2020. Currently Nicolas is working on a forthcoming album centered around solo works born out of the solitude of 2020 that engages live electronics, minimalism and jazz practices. 

 

In his film scoring practice, Nicolas directly applies his experience as performer and composer of live music. Nicolas seeks to always retain a strong sense of melody in his scores; pulling from his years of experience as jazz musician, composer and arranger, Nicolas creates scores with rich harmonies  and memorable melodies that always contain an element of obscurity that pull the listeners into the world in which the music is set.  

 

Nicolas holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jazz Studies from the University of California, Irvine and a Master of Fine Arts from the dual Performance-Composition program at the California Institute of the Arts. 

 

Nicolas is available for film scoring, sound design, arranging and saxophone performance, recording and lessons