Nick Stahl is a saxophonist, composer, and craftsman from Bainbridge Island, Washington. He is a 2019 alumnus of the California Institute of the Arts, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in jazz reeds, and a Minor in music theory. While there, he studied primarily with Paul Novros and Steve Lehman, as well as with David Roitstein, Larry Koonse, Joe La Barbera, Miroslav Tadic, Bennie Maupin, Chris Speed, and Darek Oles.
Nick’s influences, in addition to jazz and its derivatives, include salsa, highlife, Scottish, Persian, and Balkan music. Specializing in live performance and studio work, he strives to be a versatile musician, comfortable across a multitude of genres, including jazz, blues, rock, pop, and folk. He has had the privilege of recording at Capitol Records for the 2017, 2018, and 2019 CalArts Jazz CDs, the latest of which features one of his own compositions, “Ten Thousand Cicadas.” Nick has also recorded at Kingsize Soundlabs, and at MANT studios for Rob Schnapf. He has performed at an assortment of venues, including the Washington State Capitol, the Seattle Museum of History and Industry, the Los Angeles Theatre Center, Art Share L.A, and The Study Hollywood.
Nick was one of 15 young performers/composers from across the U.S. invited to attend the 2019 Program for Jazz at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute. While there he worked with Rufus Reid, Billy Childs, and Steve Wilson, workshopping compositions over the course of a week, culminating in a concert at Bennett Gordon Hall.
In late June of 2019, Nick was brought to Treiste, Italy, along with seven other musicians from around the world as part of the third meeting of the Global Music Education League, hosted by the Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Tartini.” There they performed at the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA), utilizing the groundbreaking LoLa system, a low latency audio/video technology, to perform in real time with a clarinetist in Vienna, Austria, 300 miles away.