Biography
Nicole Russin-McFarland is a visionary composer, director, screenwriter, and actress redefining the landscape of modern independent cinema and film music. Known for her emotionally driven orchestral scores and imaginative, self-created film worlds, she blends the storytelling traditions of Romantic-era composition with the energy of contemporary pop culture-creating a signature style all her own.
As a multi-hyphenate force, Russin-McFarland has composed music streamed millions of times across platforms from Spotify to user uploaded videos on TikTok and Meta, directed award-winning animated features, and written screenplays that fuse fantasy, introspection, and visual wonder. Her work often explores themes of resilience, girlhood, and the healing power of imagination-inviting audiences into whimsical worlds with emotional depth.
Describing herself as "a Midwestern girl in Wonderland," Nicole was raised between downstate Illinois, downtown Chicago on weekends, and her great aunt and uncle's home in Urbana, one of her "portals to Wonderland." From an early age, she was composing music and sketching film plots in her school notebooks, often dreaming up imaginary remakes of classics like The Time Machine and scoring them in her head. Inspired by James Horner, Hans Zimmer, James Cameron, and Peter Jackson, she began developing her artistic voice as a teenager-deeply in love with both cinema and sound.
At just 16, she earned both her high school diploma and an associate's degree through online community college courses, later graduating from the University of Texas at Austin at 19. After moving to New York City, she modeled for brands including Redken, Laura Mercier, and Pepsi, while contributing freelance writing to GQ, Men's Health, and The New York Daily News, where she became the youngest freelancer in the paper's history at 21.
Despite facing serious and unpredictable diabetic complications throughout her twenties-including episodes of temporary blindness-Russin-McFarland continued to pursue her dream of making films and composing music. She taught herself animation and special effects through online study, eventually releasing her first animated short Pizza Delivery in 2018. Her later works include the critically praised Miss Shaguna's Chickens and the Wonderland-inspired The Homework's Revenge: Esther in Wonderland, both of which premiered digitally and found a devoted online following.
In 2021, she signed a distribution agreement with AWAL for her film score, classical crossover, and contemporary music releases. She has composed original work for film and television production music libraries, trailer placements, and streaming content, with a musical voice described as "cinematic storytelling through sound"-weaving sweeping orchestration, hybrid textures, and emotional leitmotifs into each project.
She is currently in development on her first major-budget live-action feature films while simultaneously composing and acting in projects from other creatives.
Russin-McFarland's goal is to use her artistic career not only to entertain, but to spark change-funding global charitable initiatives in mental health, arts access, environmental causes, equality, and girls' empowerment.
