Nicolas De Cock (°1979 – Ghent) has been fascinated by music from a very early age. He studied violin at the Ghent Royal Conservatory with M. Bezverkhny (1st prize Queen Elisabeth competition ’76) and graduated in 2002. About this time he composed his first classical works. It would become a passion that would remain a constant in his further career. He developed his composing skills in the class of Dirk Brossé, also at the Ghent Royal Conservatory. Nicolas obtained his master’s degree in 2005 with high honors and is mainly active as a composer, orchestrator and arranger. In recent years he has worked closely with Dirk Brossé. The arrangements and orchestrations that resulted from this collaboration were performed and/or recorded by Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen, De Filharmonie, The Belgian National Orchestra, Noord Nederlands Orkest, L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, The London Symphony Orchestra, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Prima La Musica, The London Voices, José Van Dam, Julia Migenes, Sinead O’Connor, Qilian Chen and many others. As a composer Nicolas De Cock feels at home in many different styles of music and he writes for a great variety of instruments. His oeuvre includes chamber music, orchestral music, music for choir, music for Wind Orchestra, a violin concerto,… Some of his more recent works include a Suite for String Orchestra, In Flanders Fields – a work for choir based on the poem by John McCrae – that was performed by The Flemish Radio Choir in Flagey (Brussels) and the song cycle “Gorgeous Nothings”, a cycle of 5 songs for string orchestra, soprano, choir and harp, dedicated to the world-renowned architect Paul Robbrecht. The works of Nicolas De Cock are published by Luytt Music Editions (www.luytt.com). Nicolas is also associated with the music academy of Deinze as a teacher of Music Theory, composition and orchestration.