Nickolas Kaynor is a versatile artist who currently serves as principal violist of the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra and section violist of both the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He also performs regularly with ensembles such as the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, the Cape Symphony Orchestra, the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Portland Symphony Orchestra, among others. As a featured soloist with the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra, he has performed works such as Freddie Mercury’s Bohemian Rhapsody, Pete Townshend’s Who Are You?, and Ramin Djawadi’s Game of Thrones Suite. Other solo performances have included Béla Bartók’s Viola Concerto with the Chapman Orchestra and Gerald Cohen’s Uvtovo M’chadesh with the Florilegium Chamber Choir. Nickolas also regularly performs as violist of the NYC-based Starling Quartet in collaboration with singer and composer Lacy Rose; the group recently recorded an album entitled Lispector, which will be released in the near future. He was the violist of the Chapman Duo, an ensemble that won both the Wildflower International Recording Competition and the Frances Walton Competition, and was a semi-finalist for the American Prize in Chamber Music Performance. Additionally, he won first place in the Chapman Concerto Competition and second place in the Ruth Widder String Quartet Competition. In 2022, Nickolas completed a dissertation about the Bartók Viola Concerto to conclude his doctoral studies at the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Professor Daniel Avshalomov. His viola is by Lawrence LaMay (Madison, WI, 1966).