Born in Athens, Greece but based in New York, bassist, arranger, and composer Nikos Chatzitsakos is an award-winning musician. Influenced by Black American music of the 1940s-60s, he attempts to find new ways to honor the era and connect it to other idioms. Nikos is a graduate of Berklee College Of Music in Boston, where he studied performance and jazz composition with a full-tuition scholarship. There he continued his graduate studies on a full-tuition scholarship. In 2018, he recorded with Ralph Peterson’s GenNext Big Band on the album, Listen Up. The band won first place in the 68th DownBeat Critics Poll’s Rising Star Big Band category. The Nikos Chatzitsakos Tiny Big Band earned second place in the 2019 Seven Virtual Jazz Club Competition. In 2020, Nikos won the arrangement category of the DownBeat Student Music Award. Nikos has performed alongside distinguished musicians such as Ralph Peterson, Frank Lacy, Josh Evans, Stacy Dillard, Quiana Lynell, and George Kontrafouris. Nikos has also taken the stage at venues including, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola at Lincoln Center, DC Jazz Festival, Smalls Jazz Club, Scullers Jazz Club, Agganis Arena, “Jazzed In Siberia” festival, and The Berklee Performance Center. His arrangements have been performed by the Manhattan School Of Music Jazz Orchestra, the “Jazz Academy Big Band” from Moscow, the "Novosibirsk International Student Jazz Festival" Big Band, the Athens Big Band, and the 2022 Berklee Commencement Concert.