Nick Nugent - Performer and Composer    

Former student, 29-year-old Nick Nugent, (pictured on the right), was featured in a recent Mercury Tasmania Weekend edition. Despite holding a trumpet in the photo, he is best known for being one of Hobart's leading saxophonists. 

The article was promoting Nick the musician and the Jazzamanca Festival which ran from November  5 -7. 

The Nugent family  moved from Queensland to Tasmania when Nick was twelve  and he has been playing jazz since he was about fifteen.  He first began composing and arranging music in Year 11 and 12.  However, he didn’t start composing really seriously until he was a student at the UTAS Conservatorium of Music.

His Jazzmanca performance was a culmination of almost a decade of planning, composing and arranging. Nick’s show is inspired by Charles Mingus , also known as the ‘angry man of jazz’ and is intended as a tribute to his musical legacy. 

Also performing in the ‘Nugent Octet’ at Jazzmanca are former staff members Mitch Ellis (a former Head of Music at SVC) and Les Johnston (SVC 1984-89). Nick attended St Virgil’s from 2004-2007 and was a musical tutor back at his alma mater from 2013 to 2021.

A further connection with the College is through Nick’s mother, Monica, who has been the Personal Assistant to the Principal since 2009.