A native of New York City, Nick Moran began playing trumpet at age ten, switching over to the guitar at thirteen. His early musical influences were the British rock guitarists guitarists Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Peter Frampton. Moran played in several rock groups throughout high school and college, and also studied classical guitar. He first discovered the music of George Benson at age fifteen. Other musical influences include Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

Nick’s study of jazz began informally in 1991 with arranging and ear training classes at the Fachbereich Musik in Mainz, Germany, where he also played guitar and trumpet in the university big band. He returned to New York in 1998 and began formal jazz studies in early 1999, receiving his B.F.A. in Jazz Performance from the City College of New York in 2001. His teachers at City included Ray Santos, Scott Reeves and guitarist Rick Stone. He did rhythm section studies for two years with bassist Ron Carter and studied composition with pianist/arranger Mike Holober.

Moran leads two bands and is also active as a solo performer on seven-string guitar. He performs throughout the New York City area and has played in venues such as the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Bahá'í Center, Louis 649 and the Garage. Musicians he has played with include the Ray Santos Orchestra, organist Akiko Tsuruga, trumpeter Shunzo Ohno, bassists Tom Hubbard and Marco Panascia, guitarists Adam Rafferty, Rick Stone, Nick Russo and Russ Spiegel, pianists Cliff Korman and Burt Eckoff.

Nick is also a recording engineer and producer. Notable projects include Coba’s “Cancion Mandala,” the second cd by multi-instrumentalist and composer Sebastian Cruz on Chonta Records. Nick lives with his family in Brooklyn, N.Y.