"Composer, guitarist, teacher and vocalist, Nick Vasallo has been heavily involved in music since a teenager. Though he had received no formal music training before the age of 23, he composed and performed music in a variety of styles and platforms. His autodidactic early musical training and first experience in composition began as a teenager playing guitar, singing, and writing songs for Heavy Metal and Punk bands. His academic musical training began in 2003 at California State University East Bay in Hayward where he studied Music Theory, Harmony, Composition, Counterpoint, and Form & Analysis with composers: Frank LaRocca, Jeffrey Miller, and Rafael Hernandez. Vasallo was a prolific composer during his years at Cal State and even composed music for feature length films while writing for the university as well as his band, Antagony.

Vasallo's studies in Western Art Music, Heavy Metal, Film Music, Electronic, and World Music have enabled him to develop a unique voice in today's concert music world. His music has garnered several awards; both in the Classical, Film Music and Popular Music venues. Notable Awards: 2009 San Francisco Choral Artists New Voices Award, 2008 UCSC Student Orchestral Composition Winner, 60x60 project - Pacific Rim Mix 2008-2009 selectee, The 2008 David Cope Award for Music Composition Excellence, The Seattle Pianist Collective 2008 Final Pick, 2008 soundSCAPE Summer alternate, UCSC Chancellors Doctoral Fellowship Award, and UCSC Doctoral Tuition and Fee Fellowship, Best Release of 2000 for Antagony - KSJS radio 90.5 FM, New Jersey International Film Festival Selection "Sinful" musical score, and 2007 CSUEB Student Composers Competition. Vasallo's proclivity for bringing out relationships between concert music, indigenous music and popular music is the element within his music that makes it sound like a "breath of fresh air in gray academia." "Eclecticism" is a term Vasallo uses to define his style; he draws upon a variety of influences but finds a way to make them meld naturally."

Currently, Nick Vasallo is a D.M.A. (Doctorate in Musical Arts) candidate at University of California Santa Cruz studying composition with David Evan Jones, Paul Nauert, Hi Kyung Kim, and David Cope.