Lauded as a “first rate” violinist by the late Maestro Lorin Maazel, Nicholas Pappone makes a diverse career as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, and teacher in New York City. Growing up as a professional child actor in Los Angeles, portraying the role of a prodigy violinist in a film inspired his interest in the instrument. Nicholas has performed with members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Emerson String Quartet, the New York Philharmonic, Vienna Piano Trio, and the Zukerman Chamber Players. This includes collaborations with violists Paul Neubauer, Paul Coletti, Jethro Marks, and the cellists Paul Watkins and Tchaikovsky Competition Gold Medalist, Sergey Antonov. He performs regularly with the New Jersey Symphony and Wicked on Broadway
In recent seasons, Nicholas has appeared as soloist across the U.S. including the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Bernstein Serenade with the Chelsea Symphony (NYC), the Beatles Fantasy Concerto with Diane Wittry conducting the Garden State Philharmonic, John Williams movie score solos with Michael Butterman conducting the Lancaster Symphony, the Marina del Rey Symphony (CA), Pacific Palisades Symphony, New York Session Symphony, and the New Westchester Symphony. Upcoming solo appearances in 2026-27 include performances of the Chausson Poem and Vaughan Williams Lark Ascending.
Guest concertmaster or principal engagements include the Allentown Symphony, Reading Symphony, Binghamton Philharmonic, Mount Vernon Virtuosi, as well as performing as a regular guest musician with the Baltimore Symphony and Bard College. He also appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra as violinist and actor in a unique collaboration with actor John De Lancie.
Recent recital and chamber music highlights include concerts in Los Angeles, Cremona (Italy), the Kimmel Center Perelman Theater and Academy of Music, Philadelphia, the Boulder (CO) International Duo Competition, Rutgers University, Islip Arts Council, Bar Harbor Chamber Music Festival, Grunin Center for the Arts, WMP Concert Hall’s Strad for Lunch, Teatro Principal of Burgos, Spain, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the National Arts Centre of Ottawa, and Heliconian Hall in Toronto, Canada.
Nicholas performs on two violins, a W.E. Hill and Sons of London c. 2019, and a Matteo Goffriller c.1700 generously loaned by the Fortier Family Trust.
In the summers, Nicholas is violin, chamber music, and conducting faculty at the Summit Music Festival NY, International Academy of Music in Tuscany, Italy and the Burgos International Music Festival in Spain. Nicholas’s teachers and mentors include Patinka Kopec, Pinchas Zukerman, Rodney Friend, and Grigory Kalinovsky.