About

Nic Paton holds a B Mus degree (in Composition and Jazz Studies) and has traversed an exceptionally broad range of musical landscapes, including rock, jazz, songwriting, electronica, and world music, as a performer, composer, and producer.

Nic’s music supports film, documentary, television, jingles and commercial productions, creating the space needed to enhance the emotional aspects of narrative and message. He is sensitive to directorial and artistic vision and finds as much satisfaction in collaborating as in creating original music.

Deeply versed in the disciplines of jazz and orchestral arrangement, and conventional instrumentation (playing guitar, piano and saxophone), Nic also employs a swathe of more exotic instruments such as zouk (Irish Bouzouki), mandolin, valiha, charango, and bass clarinet. He is equally at home with the sonic possibilities of the digital domain as he is in perennial acoustic styles. Furthermore, he has been immersed in African musical forms for many years, having close ties to traditional African vocal and instrumental performers.

His influences include the composers such as Alexandre Desplat “(The Kings Speech”), Thomas Newman (“American Beauty”), Hans Zimmer (“Thin Red Line”) and James Horner (“Avatar”), eclectic visionaries like Nitin Sawhney and Tananas, the classic electronica of Underworld and Massive Attack, and master songsmiths like Peter Gabriel and Neil Finn.

Nic has recently scored the trailer for South African feature film “Otelo Burning”, and delivered several well-received albums for production library Mama Dance : “Wilderness Within: Soundtracks for Creatures and Cosmos”, “Space and Story : Soundtracks for Mythmaking”, and “Twana Toons”, a collection of African childrens music, in addition to a variety of corporate and commercial work.

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