Hayden Wayne (born 3/2/49) (composer/librettist) may be one of the first in his generation to take the rare route through pop/rock music's highest levels to reach where he is today. He began playing piano at the age of four and played tenor drum in the orchestra pit of The King And I at the age of five which his father was conducting, and performed his first composition in concert at the age of eleven. He won a second prize medal for piano solo from the New York State Music Awards at fifteen. The '70s saw him performing in the pop/rock world for such major-label backed bands as Man (CBS Records)and Jobriath (Elektra Records). He toured with the likes of Sly Stone, the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, Billy Joel, Gordon Lightfoot, Gladys Knight and the Fifth Dimension. Eventually, tired of touring, he took (or rather went back) to composing. In his unique position - with a classical training and a wealth of pop/rock experience - he began experimenting with a synthesis of various genres/styles.

As a composer, Mr. Wayne opened a new theater for the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles with his metaphorical circus Wire, won national first place (1987) from the National Institute for Music Theater with Neon (A Street Opera) . In 2002, NEON won a 25,000 DM prize in the Prague Opera Competition. He was commissioned to write In Memoriam: A Celebration, by the Interfaith Concert of Holocaust Remembrance, which premiered at Saint John the Divine in New York in 1993. Subsequently linked with Sinfonietta No. 1: The Klezmer (To hear the Klezmer, go to this page) and An Elegy Into Madness, specifically commissioned for the Fiftieth Anniversary of Israel, and titled A Triptych, had its world première at Mandel Hall, the University of Chicago in January 1998.

Mr. Wayne also has several film scores and award-winning commercials for television to his credit. To date, Mr. Wayne has written over four hundred compositions including: The Symphony of Friends, the ballet Cirque de la Lune, Dracula (Opera Erotica), Piano Concerto #1 (The Rock "n' Roll) (To hear piano concerto, go to this page) and Cello Concerto #1 (To hear cello concerto, go to this page) which are paired as a diptych: Sinfonietta #2 (It's a Boy) (To hear Sinfonietta, go to this page) and #3 (The Emerald) To hear the Emerald, go to this page); Violin-Piano Sonata (The "Kraft"); The Symphonic Trilogy: #2-REGGAE, #3-HEAVY METAL, #4-FUNK; and SYMPHONY #5 Africa [A Tone Poem] (all recorded by the State Philharmonic of Brno, on New Millennium Records); the string quartets The Rosenberger Variations and The Romantic, The Nuzerov Quartets 3, 4 and 5, Nuzerov Quartets 6,7 & 8, and Nuzerov Quartets 9 & 10 performed by the Wallinger String Quartet; Five Dances For Cello and Piano/Piano Quintet #1 (all available on New Millennium Records), and hundreds of songs in various eclectic styles.

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