Nolan Stolz is a composer, scholar, drummer, and music professor living in Spartanburg, SC. Born in Milwaukee, WI, Stolz grew up in Las Vegas, NV, where he worked as a freelance jazz drummer for several years. Today, he is a Professor of Music at the University of South Carolina Upstate, where he teaches composition, music theory, and popular music studies.

Although firmly rooted in the contemporary classical tradition, his compositions are influenced by his performance background in jazz and rock. Fanfare Magazine called his Lincoln Highway Suite for orchestra a “brilliant piece of Americana. . .a piece of inspiration and skill,” saying that the “orchestration is brilliantly managed” and “Stolz has a fine repository of [melodies] in his back pocket.” The Brno Philharmonic’s recording of that work (on Orchestral Masters, Vol. 5) was awarded second place in the American Prize in 2020. Other studio recordings include Princess Ka‘iulani for flute on SCI’s Modes album, Catharsis II for piano quartet on Millennial Masters Vol. 3, Lullaby for Sam for guitar on Aaron Larget-Caplan’s New Lullaby, and several others.