Music has always been a central part of Nick's life—and at times, one of the ways he's made his living. He played guitar and sang in rock bands while in high school, then in a shipboard band while in the Navy, and for several years in the group The Naked April, in the Salt Lake City, Utah area. He's one of the principal composers for the music performed and recorded by The Naked April; he has also composed music for stage and readers' theater productions in Utah and Idaho, and for use as lead-in/out music in instructional videos.
In addition to his musical pursuits, Nick has also done occasional voice-over and other spoken-word work since he was a teenager. His first voice work was for spoken-word dramatizations produced by a Utah-based recording studio and production company. In later years, he included voice-over services in curriculum development and multimedia production work he did for the Hepatitis B Foundation, New Mexico CS4All, the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge, and others.
While in graduate school, Nick met and worked with Bob Bosch, now a professor of Mathematics at Oberlin College and an innovator in the field of optimization art (and more generally, algorithmic art). Continuing their association since that time, Nick has employed and extended a number of techniques invented by Bob—both in producing visual art, and in teaching the underlying algorithmic concepts to students.