At age ten, having played percussion, piano and banjo for five years, Nico Abondolo took up the bass and joined Tom Thumb and the Hangnails. He devoted the next ten years to the study of classical music, including his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at age fourteen and numerous appearances for L.A. educational television. These years culminated in winning first prize at the Geneva International Competition in 1983, and in doing so became the first bass player ever to receive first prize in that competition. At this point Nico decided to return to his early musical influences of Sly and the Family Stone and Creedance Clearwater Revival, seeking a marriage between his classical study and a love for funk and R&B.
Nico has always been involved in live theatrical music and loves the collaboration inherent in this work. His studies at The Julliard School provided him with an opportunity to explore this further and it was there that he met Rebecca Stenn. The close music-dance relationship they forged allowed Nico to broaden and include all his influences, finally allowing him to join Schubert and Sly. Compositionally the possibilities became endless, allowing him to draw on musical ideas from classical solo bass to synthesizer samples.
In addition to The Perks, Nico maintains an active performing and teaching schedule. He performs as bassist and percussionist for his Brazilian band, Caixa de Sol, and is a frequent artist at the La Jolla Chamber Music Festival, the Bach Camerata series, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Continuum Ensemble of New Music, he is also in demand as a session player in motion picture, TV. and recording orchestras in Hollywood. He is on the faculty of U.C.S.B., the Music Academy of the West, the R.D. Colburn School of Performing Arts at U.S.C. and the Idyllwild School of Music.
Nico is known to drop anything and everything if the surf is good.

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