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As composer/arranger, performer and recording artist, percussionist and keyboard player/pianist, educator and author, sound programmer, multimedia content developer and MIDI specialist, Andy Wasserman draws on an astonishingly diverse range of experiences in the music industry. He earned his degree in composition at the New England Conservatory of Music and has been involved in numerous activities as a full-time professional musician over the past 25 years.
He studied drums and orchestral percussion in elementary through junior high school, preparing him for attendance at the High School of Music & Art in New York City as a mallet and timpani player. His background in African and Afro-Cuban percussion comes from classes in the 1970's at Babatunde Olatunji's School of African Music and Dance in Harlem. He studied Latin percussion privately with renowned drummer Danny Barajanos. He was a private piano student of Yale University educator and pianist Dwike Mitchell (of the Mitchell-Ruff Duo) for over 10 years.
Wasserman is a popular arts-in-education curriculum specialist who has performed concerts and conducted seminars, clinics, artist-in-residence workshops and teacher-training in-service sessions for last 16 years throughout the United States for the Young Audiences and Festival of Music agencies. His original production "Making Music from Around the World" focuses on the music and cultures represented by percussion, string and wind instruments from countries in Asia, Africa and South America. Wasserman's second show, "Instruments: Ancient to Future," showcases these same instruments alongside MIDI-based percussion controllers and digital sampling technology, illustrating the musical connections between acoustic and electronic mediums. He has been contracted for appearances in over 1000 different educational sites reaching over 700,000 audience and workshop participants since 1979. "Using Multimedia: A Journey Through World Cultures" is another one of Wasserman's special arts presentations given to teachers and students interested in new media. Andy is the author of numerous reference and resource materials and has developed expertise in the area of music education for special needs and handicapped audiences. He studied music therapy at New York University and was the recipient of a certificate by the American Association of Artist-Therapists for his many years of service as a recreational music therapist.
Wasserman runs his own digital audio & MIDI production studio: TransMedia Sound & Music . This company has enabled Wasserman to promote his technology and production skills while conceiving and creating original scores and audio tracks in-house since 1987 for clients such as CBS and ABC-TV, AT&T, Time-Life Music, QVC-TV Network, Digital Cable Radio, Mastercard, Panasonic, New York Communications/Prime Productions, and Virtual Entertainment.
Wasserman has 2 recordings released under his name: as sole composer--he is a BMI writer--arranger and solo instrumentalist. The Pyramid Production Music Library released a CD of music for film and TV consisting of 26 of Andy's original compositions representing over 10 varied musical styles. High Harmony Records released "Kindred Spirits", a CD featuring Wasserman on MIDI instruments, grand piano, and electronic/acoustic percussion.
Wasserman is a long-standing member of American Federation of Musicians Local 802, New York City. He has performed in nightclub and concert venues in the U.S. and Europe since 1971, and has composed and performed many musical accompaniments live and on tape for dancers in the Jazz, Tap, African, Modern and Improvisational idioms for premier ensembles that include the Copasetics, Jane Goldberg, Brenda Buffalino, as well as his wife, Dorothy Wasserman. Andy recently completed a steady nine-year weekend engagement as solo jazz pianist at the prestigious United Nations Plaza Park Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan.
Andy is also currently involved in music publishing. He has been working closely with legendary composer/bandleader/theoretician George Russell since 1980 on the revision of Russell's classic text "The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization" as both editor, notation copyist and desktop publishing layout artist. Andy studied full-time under Mr. Russell for 3 years at New England Conservatory and is currently one of only a few music educators sanctioned by Mr. Russell as qualified to teach the Lydian Chromatic Concept in its current form. Wasserman is now conducting research for the draft of his own book, entitled "The Magnetic Essence of Music" and is the past editor of "Music and MacData" MIDI magazine. He was a MIDI Forum Guest Expert of the Month on Compuserve.
Wasserman's sound design and digital sampler programming has been utilized by artists such as Al DiMeola and for the Starfish Sound Library. He was commissioned by Opcode Interactive to research and produce all video, audio, digital samples, photography and text for a multimedia interactive CD-ROM entitled "Beat of the Blue Planet" which allows the desktop computer user to learn and play 107 percussion, wind and string instruments from 15 countries around the world. He has been approved and enlisted for multimedia content development for projects planned by both the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society. Wasserman has given keynote lectures on music and multimedia at the New Media Forum in New York City and for the Slice of Life International Multimedia Conference at the University of Chicago.
View the biography of Mario DeCiutiis
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