At the age of 7, Nick took an interest in the guitar being influenced by his father, a guitarist himself, and started lessons.  By the time he entered high school, with over 5 years of playing experience, he was exposed to classical guitar music through a program in his home town.  After deciding early on to pursue his passion for music professionally, it was during his senior year of high school that he attended the Pre-College division at the Juilliard School of Music studying with world renowned guitarist Antigoni Goni.  He later attended the Hartt School of Music completing his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Classical Guitar Performance where he studied with guitar pedagogue Richard Provost.  During his time at Hartt, he was a member of the prestigious Performance 2020 honors program.  In addition, he won the Miami String Quartet Competition and was named finalist in the Hartt School’s Paranov Concerto Competition.  Additionally he was a semifinalist in the Boston GuitarFest Adult Competition.

 

As an active performer, Nick has extensively toured throughout the United States and Italy both as a soloist and chamber musician.  He has been involved with the New England Guitar Quartet, the violin and guitar duo Tempo del Fuoco and has performed with the Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, Blackledge Music Inc, the Northeast New Music Collective just to mention a few.

 

As an advocate for new music, Nick has premiered many new works for the classical guitar including most recently Shadow of the Sun by Frank Wallace and Stagger Breathing by Colin Britt.  Other composers whom he has worked with include EMMY Award Winning Composer Sean Pallatroni, Thomas Schuttenhelm, and Dan Lis who wrote and dedicated a Guitar Concerto for Nick.

 

Working closely with David Madsen Nick completed the Long Term Suzuki Pedagogy program along side his studies as a Master’s student at Hartt - becoming the first guitarist in the country to hold a degree in Suzuki Pedagogy. 

 

Nick maintains an active private teaching studio not only working with students in person in his teaching space in Glastonbury, CT along with students all over the world through online lessons.  He regularly posts educational content on his youtube channel (youtube.com/nickcutroneo) in addition to his live and studio performance videos.  He also serves on faculty at Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT and Bay Path University, Longmeadow, MA.

 

Nick provides lectures and masterclasses to guitar societies and guitar programs throughout the country as well as given a lecture at the Suzuki Association of the Americas conference and taught at the Volterra Project.  He regularly engages in community performances providing a varied and enjoyable program for assisted living facilities and public libraries.  Additionally, he provides masterclasses and clinics to public school music programs.  These classes are meant to further interest in the classical guitar students who might not otherwise be exposed to the instrument.  

 

Embracing the digital world, Nick maintains active social media accounts.  He engages regularly with his followers and uses this medium to help reach a new audience for his music by posting videos on his Facebook and YouTube pages and live streaming practice sessions and performances on his twitch channel (twitch.tv/guitarshreda).

 

Nick plays a 2017 “Simple Lattice” Guitar built by Alan H. Chapman of Chapman & Fisher Guitars.