Kip Winger

“Kip Winger is one of the best writers of the past three decades. The quality never dips. From his own solo stuff through to the Winger hits." - Classic Rock Magazine

While Kip Winger has arrived at the highest level of achievement possible for an orchestral composer, his professional journey has been utterly unpredictable and remarkable for its diverse musical path.

Early in his career, Kip toured as a bass player with rock legend Alice Cooper, moving on to perform and record with Alan Parsons (as the lead singer for Alan Parsons’ Live Project), Roger Daltrey, Bob Dylan, and Twisted Sister. In 2012, London’s Classic Rock Magazine called Kip Winger “one of the most gifted composers and arrangers in the rock genre” and praised his "compulsion to experiment".

After establishing his hugely successful, eponymous band — which sold millions of albums and charted six Top‐40 radio singles — Kip started writing and producing music without limits. "It was incredibly freeing to connect to music without any preconceived ideas about what it needed to be or what niche it needed to fill". It is in Kip's solo work (This Conversation seems like a Dream, Songs from the Ocean Floor, From the Moon to the Sun) that he has been able to exercise the breadth of his talents as a composer.

Kip always knew he had to turn his attention back to his first loves: classical music and ballet. He studied composition with Richard Danielpour, Michael Kurek and Richard Hermann. Since then, his works have been commissioned and performed by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the Sun River Music Festival in Oregon, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra in Greece. Teacher Michael Kurek has publicly praised Kip for “his great ear and innate musical sensitivity... beautifully crafted phrases and nuance”.

Kip Winger’s score for the ballet Ghosts, written for string orchestra, piano and harp, is one of the most celebrated contemporary ballet scores in performance today. Championed by the world‐renowned and Tony‐award‐winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, Ghosts was part of the San Francisco Ballet’s repertoire from 2010 to 2014, with performances at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, London’s Sadler’s Wells, and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. In 2010, Ghosts was nominated for the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music/Sound/Text. Ballet Austin and the Austin Symphony Orchestra included ‘Ghosts’ as part of their Valentine’s Day weekend performance in 2020, alongside Stravinsky’s Rubies by Balanchine.

In 2016, Kip recorded Winger: Conversations with Nijinsky with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. The album, which included music from Ghosts, reached #1 on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Chart and was nominated for a Grammy in 2017 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Tamara Nijinsky said at the opening performance of Conversations with Nijinsky, “Kip Winger has captured my father’s heart and soul… and reminds us of my father’s genius with his own work”.

His band, Winger, continues to record and tour and their 2014 album Better Days Comin’ entered at #4 on
Billboard’s Hard Rock Albums Chart and at #85 on Billboard’s Top 200. Winger’s 7th album Seven, released on May 5, 2023, entered at #21 on Billboard’s Top Current Album Sales. To support the new album, Winger has been touring all over the US, and has also included the UK, Japan, Australia and New Zealand in their tour.

Kip Winger also made his theatrical composing debut with Get Jack, A Musical Thriller, which is currently on development stage and was presented in concert in New York in October 2019. The album entered at #7 on Billboard’s Cast Albums.

Kip has forged an ongoing relationship with the Nashville Symphony, his hometown orchestra since settling in Music City in 2002. The ensemble’s music director Giancarlo Guerrero persuaded Winger to write his first symphony, Atonement, which the Nashville Symphony premiered in March 2023; in the 2024-25 season, they will present his newly commissioned violin concerto and release a CD on Naxos of his music.