L-R: top row: Chuck Ainlay, Steve Durr, Jeff Balding, Ben Fowler, Nick Palladino. Bottom row: Julian King, Jon Randall Stewart, Terry Palmer.
Santa Monica, CA (February 28, 2013)—Music Makes Us, a new music education initiative in Nashville’s public schools, will include a recording studio designed, equipped and guided by The Recording Academy’s Producers & Engineers Wing.
Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) director Jesse Register, and John Esposito, president/CEO of Warner Music Nashville, have announced the creation of a student-run record label to be a key component of Music Makes Us. The project will be centered around a state-of-the-art recording studio at Nashville’s Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet High School.
Members of the Pearl-Cohn subcommittee of the P&E Wing, including subcommittee chair Jeff Balding, Nashville P&E Wing co-chairs Chuck Ainlay and Justin Niebank, Steve Durr, Ben Fowler, Julian King, Nick Palladino, and Terry Palmer, all contributed their collective knowledge, wisdom and passion to the project, which will feature a 32-channel API 1608 console in the main control room, and two post/editing suites equipped with SSL Nucleus DAW controllers. Additionally, the project will feature products from Audio-Technica, Fredenstein Professional Audio, the Harman Professional brands (AKG Acoustics, JBL Professional and Lexicon) and Shure. The recording studio is scheduled to open mid-April.
“When we were approached with this project, we were delighted,” recalls Grammy Award-winning producer/engineer Chuck Ainlay. “But we also realized that the recording studio aspect would need more than just equipment-it would need a solid acoustical design and a layout that would work well for students and teachers as well as for artists and engineers.”
Award-winning recording studio designer Steve Durr, also a Nashville resident, laid out the acoustical and ergometric designs, which are being constructed at Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet High School.
The record label, to be operated by students at Pearl-Cohn, will be managed through a strategic alliance with Warner Music Nashville and will sign, record and promote student artists from across the school district. A Pearl-Cohn student will be named to head the record label each year. Record sale proceeds will be reinvested into the Music Makes Us program.
The Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing
www.producersandengineers.com
