Richard Marx copped a Song of the Year Grammy recently for “Dance With My Father,” a song he co-wrote with Luther Van Dross, but if that signals a comeback in your mind for the singer/songwriter, who had a succession of smash hits in the late 80’s before fading from public view, you’re wrong. Although his time in the spotlight may have passed, (temporarily at least, he will be releasing a solo album later in the year,)) Richard Marx has enjoyed great success over the last decade as a songwriter and producer.

Those of you who remember Donny Osmond as the pint-sized heir apparent to Andy Williams may be surprised to find that the mature Mr. Osmond-he still answers to Donny, is a gear freak who's deeply involved with the engineering process on the records he makes.  

Over the course of a career that spans nearly four decades, Bruce Broughton has established-and maintained-a reputation as one of the premiere orchestral composers and arrangers in Hollywood. As a young man Broughton worked extensively in television (his first credit was on one of the last episodes of Gunsmoke).  Director Lawrence Kasdan tapped him to score Silverado in 1985; Broughton’s epic Western score brought him an Oscar nomination and the attention of other film directors and producers.

You grow up in Los Angeles the son of a widely respected jazz piano player and successful arranger, start grabbing for the keyboard before you’re tall enough to look down on it, and join a band with some high school classmates. Soon, you’re a member of one of the most popular bands in the world. Not a bad bio, but for David Paich, a principal architect of the Toto sound, it’s not quite enough.

After slipping out of the spotlight for awhile, Toto is back on the road supporting their new, self-produced album, Falling In Between.

Back in 1981 The Police were in full flush, John Lennon was alive and well (and on the charts with a pair of singles (“Starting Over” and “Woman”) culled from the Double Fantasy album, and Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” was a smash hit. A quartet of young jazz musicians looking for a sound of their own was also wood shedding and getting ready to release their first album. None of them, including pianist Russ Ferrante and bass player Jimmy Haslip, dreamed that a quarter of a century later the Yellowjackets would still be recording and touring.  

In an upcoming print issue of Mix we’ll be featuring a piece on BT, a pioneer in the field of Trance music. In that interview BT talks about his personal studio and the tools he relies on to create his work. We continue our conversation here in the blog, focusing on the art of music.

Mix: You often speak about the relationship between music and mathematics. I believe you once said that you incorporated the Fibonacci sequence into one of your compositions. Can you give me some examples of how math influences your compositional style?

Ed Kaheloff sits behind a thick, oak veneered desk, rifling through a dense pile of papers. "Just last week a producer was sitting right where you are, and she spotted a message she'd left a full year ago!"  Whatever he was looking for will have to wait; the composer and producer has another point to make.

Growing up just south of London Harry Gregson Williams spent hours every school day performing works by the English choral masters as a member of a refined choir.  He continued singing while studying both arts at the Guild Hall School of Music and Drama. Now one of the most successful film composers in LA, with scores for The Chronicles of Narnia, Kingdom of Heaven, Shrek I and II, and others under his belt it’s easy to spot these early influences in his writing, which combines elements of electronica , rock, and big band with subtle reflections on Byrd, Tallis, and other early masters like Palestrina and Machaut.

His great grandfather arrived from Ireland to help build St. Peter’s Cathedral in Danbury, Connecticut. Long Journey Home, the Tom Lennon documentary that first aired on PBS in January, represents a closing of the circle for composer Brian Keane, who lives not far from the town where his great grandfather settled.

Sampling has altered the course of music in obvious and subtle ways over the last quarter century or so. Integrating snippets of well known recordings into new ones set off a series of legal ground fires. Jingle demos evolved into full blown productions, thanks to emulated ensembles. Composers of “classical” music-some-adjusted their techniques to include the new technologies. Michael Jarrell, for example, in his powerful oratorio “Cassandra,” combines an exquisite handling of traditional instruments with effects loaded samplers to evoke the city of Troy in a time of violent disintegration.

At first glance, a mentally deranged elderly woman and her equally afflicted middle-aged daughter might not seem the likeliest central characters in a musical that draws rave reviews from both high minded critics and a flock of Broadway theater goers, but there you go: after concluding a highly successful off-Broadway run in 2006 Grey Gardens played to sold out crowds during its season on the Great White Way.

A single question, worth 100 points, and seconds only to answer: Who was Sylvius Leopold Weiss? As expected, you failed to give the correct answer: Weiss was Germany's most famous lutenist/composer back in the day and J.S. Bach was a huge fan. That's ok, I didn't think Guy Sigsworth would know about him either...but I was wrong! In fact, the London based pop songwriter/producer is incredibly well versed in baroque music, the Renaissance, and lots more. Ah, what they do to a guy at Cambridge!

David Lynch has made a career out of pushing his audience into unexpected places. Experimenting with new techniques and technologies has also been a part of his game plan, and the emergence of webcasting has attracted his attention.Lynch is currently preparing to launch a pair of webcast series. We spoke with John Neff, a musician and engineer who has been working for the last four years at Asymmetrical Studios, Lynch's West Coast production facility, about the new projects, Rabbits, and Axxon N. 

Queens native Chieli Minucci has a bloodline in the music business: his dad Ulpio was a composer ('Domani") and arranger who worked regularly with the likes of Nat "King" Cole and Julius La Rosa. Serious musical training was the way for Chieli, first at the piano and then, at the ripe age of 8, on guitar.