Nicholas McNair began composing at the piano at the age of six, thereby laying the ground for a unique technique of tonal improvisation, which continues to be the central factor in his music making and in his researches into the spiritual roots of classical music. He became head chorister of Canterbury Cathedral at the age of twelve and gained his professional diploma as an organist at seventeen, before going on to study at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music. While in London he wrote a series of commissioned chamber and choral works supported by the Arts Council of Great Britain, the RVW Trust and other private foundations, as well as forming a partnership, “The Gentle Muse”, for performance of Baroque, Classical and Contemporary music in places of special architectural interest. The British Council sponsored a concert of his works in Queluz Palace, Portugal in May 1991, and commissioned a cantata “Magnificat” for the singer Liliana Bizineche in 1992. From 1992 till 1996 he worked with the conductor John Eliot Gardiner, researching and preparing for performance the principal operas of Mozart and Beethoven, all of them recorded by Deutsche Grammophon-Archiv. After thorough revisions of Figaro and Don Giovanni he was made officially responsible for the musical edition of the Magic Flute in 1995 and of Leonore (first version of Fidelio) in 1996, presented in seven countries including New York’s Lincoln Center Festival, London’s Promenade Concerts and the Salzburg Festival. His essays on the philosophical literary and musical aspects of these operas have appeared in six languages. Aside from extensive work with opera and ballet and numerous concerts accompanying singers and instrumentalists he has also appeared frequently with the Gulbenkian Orchestra as organist, harpsichordist and pianist, working with Michel Corboz, Franz Bruggen, Michael Zilm, Christopher Hogwood and others. He was also for 15 years musical director of the Opera class of the Escola Superior de Musica in Lisbon which presented a “new” Handel opera, “The Mirror of Immortality”, devised by him and stage director Paulo Matos at the S. Carlos opera house in June 2001. He collaborated with Robert Wilson and Philip Glass in the preparation of the opera “The White Raven” in Lisbon and Madrid in 1998, and at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York in July 2001. Since 1994 he has created live music for over one hundred silent films at the Cinemateca Portuguesa, appearing also in the Cannes International Film Festival of 1995. He has worked with conductor Gillian Anderson on projects for film and orchestra, including Griffith’s “Intolerance” and “Birth of a Nation”, and Georges Pallu’s “Amor de Perdição”. A new edition of the music for this last film, prepared with his collaboration and featuring his improvisations, was presented by them at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., in July 1997. He gave a recital of his improvisations at the Mafra Festival in October 1997, and his debut CD, entitled “Classical Improvisations”, was released by Eroica in July 1998. A new set of 6 CDs was created by him over 3 evenings in February 2001, the pieces from which he has transcribed for concert use, as well as in performances with poets and actors such as André Gago (with whom he performed in the Macao Cultural Centre in November 2002). In March 2003 he gave a concert of his works (including the music from his CD Running Waters) with soprano Petra van Tendeloo at Mãe d’Água, Lisboa on World Water Day on behalf of the charity Wateraid. In September 2003 he collaborated with directors Carina Reich and Bogdan Szyber on the show “Dying for Love” for the Capitals Festival at the Gulbenkian Foundation, as well as the revised version at the Dansenshus in Stockholm in September 2004, and Leiria, Portugal in June 2005. He created the music for Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest’ in a production by Globe Theatre director Tim Carroll at Lisbon’s S. Luiz Theatre (and subsequently on tour) in January 2004, and also for ‘Hamlet’ in a production by André Gago (Sintra, 2007). He has recently provided support as repetiteur and musicologist for productions of Mozart’s Figaro, Don Giovanni, Bastien und Bastienne (for which he composed the missing recitatives) and Der Schauspieldirektor. He has also worked with choir courses in Provence (Les Musicales de Grillon, directed by Artur Carneiro) and Evora (Jornadas da Escola de Évora, directed by Peter Phillips).