Meet the Creators

Our Story

Nicole and Dirk began writing music for Halloween in 2006. They started their media company - Goes to Eleven Media and began an intense musical creation journey.  Their Halloween albums have been licensed for film, television, and even for Halloween events like Knott’s Scary Farm and Canada's Wonderland. One Halloween, while they were putting on a neighborhood haunt and blasting their creepy music, a friend asked, kind of jokingly, for them to create a children’s CD for Halloween because their music was a little too intense and scary for little kids. They thought it was a great idea, and released their first children’s album, “My Halloween,” filled with catchy kid’s songs in 2008. They wanted to make it even more accessible to children, and so the Nirks (named after Nicole and Dirk!) were born. Being very low budget, they created puppets out of recycled materials and literally stuff they found in the garage for their first puppet video, “Trick-or-Treat, “ and it got an incredible response from fans on YouTube! 

They continue to build all of their own puppets (still using a lot of recycled materials they find in the garage, at garage sales or thrift shops.)  The puppets may be made out of old materials, but they are all made with love and come alive to entertain, educate and delight children and families.  Nicole hand crafts all of the space puppets herself.  Each puppet is unique and handmade.  She carves them, paints them, fabricates them and then brings them to life.  She combines the crafted puppets with animation and artwork to bring us far off galaxies and celestial wonders.  

A majority of the voices are done by Nicole, who, if you ask her family, could make you have an animated discussion with a stapler before you even knew what was happening. Both Nicole and Dirk have a knack for voices and enjoy bringing new, quirky personalities to life with each new puppet.    

Dirk and Nicole continue to compose music and write songs for the Nirks to this day. They enjoy combining orchestral style music with popular music to create their own very unique signature sound.

Both are also active working musicians.  Dirk, is an excellent vocalist, bass player and keyboard player.  He performs regularly with a Cure Tribute Band in the Los Angeles area.  

Nicole is also classical composer, bassoonist/contrabassoonist, and music educator.