Guitarist Nicholas Padmanabhan, age 16, is a Merit Award winner in the 2016 National YoungArts Foundation competition. He was the first-place winner in the statewide 2016 American String Teachers Association Guitar Competition and also took first place in the Sierra Nevada Guitar Competition in both 2016 and 2014. Nicholas was a finalist in the Mondavi Center Young Artists Competition in both 2017 and 2016 and won second prize in the 2017 Enkor International Music Competition. He twice won first place in the Menuhin-Dowling Young Musicians Competition. Selected by audition, Nicholas has performed as a soloist in the Junior Bach Festival for six consecutive years beginning in 2012. Nicholas appeared in 2015 on “From The Top” on National Public Radio with his guitar quartet, recorded before a live audience in San Francisco and broadcast nationally. In 2016 he opened concerts by Pepe Romero at San Francisco Performances and by David Leisner at the South Bay Guitar Society. Nicholas has performed as a soloist for the Sacramento Guitar Society, at the Bear Valley Music Festival in Bear Valley, Calif., and on public radio KPFA in the San Francisco Bay Area. He spoke and performed at the 2016 TEDx conference at Palo Alto High School. He frequently performs in recital and in informal appearances as a volunteer at a local assisted-living center. Nicholas has studied both solo and ensemble repertoire in Ben Verdery’s Masterclass in Maui, Hawaii, and has played solo in masterclasses for Sergio Assad, Manuel Barrueco, Marcin Dylla, and Andrew York, among others. Nicholas is a student of Scott Cmiel at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Pre-College Division, where he also studies music theory, vocal ensemble, and chamber music in a guitar quartet.
