“My Peabody experience has proven beneficial throughout my career both in terms of my music education and the foundation of recording experience and knowledge it provided. I have also grown a network of friends, colleagues, and supporters emanating from Peabody that have played a significant role in my professional and personal life over the years.”
Sheldon Steiger | Major Who Media
Sheldon Steiger is an established producer and songwriter who is active in both the recording and live concert sectors of the music business. He has worked with some of the most exciting names in music including Joss Stone, Joe Jackson, Diane Birch, Care Bears On Fire, Bon Jovi, David Sanborn, and Paul Simon, as well as with such contemporary classical artists and composers as Kathleen Supove, Randall Woolf, Project Trio, the American Composers Orchestra, Susie Ibarra, and Jennifer Choi. In 2007, he co-founded MajorWho Media, a music management, production, booking, and publishing company in New York City.
“There is no doubt in my mind that I would not be where I am right now without my experience as a recording arts and composition student at Peabody. It was at Peabody where I was challenged to begin the ongoing learning process of listening critically, and responding with creative, artful, and appropriate audio decisions. The extensive scope of the program lays not only a technical foundation for listening, thinking critically, recording, and mixing, but also serves as a launching pad for the end goal of any audio engineer—to convey the art and beauty of engaging music and sound.”
Geoff Knorr | Composer, Recording Engineer
Geoff Knorr graduated in 2008 with a BM in recording and MM in composition, having finished his BM in composition at Peabody a year earlier. He is currently working as a composer and sound designer at a Baltimore-area game company, Firaxis Games. The job involves the creation of music for games—writing it, producing it, recording it, and mixing it—as well as the creation of the ambient soundscapes and sound effects necessary to evoke the world and drama of the game.
“I graduated from Peabody in 1998 and was given a great foundation to get into music recording with National Public Radio. The education that I received from Peabody makes it so that I am able to go into a challenging recording location and make intelligent decisions about what microphones to use and where to put them to get the best recording possible. A theme that always seems to come up is that the audio is the “easy” part, because there are so many other things that go into making a recording or doing a live broadcast (ISDN lines for making the high quality link back to headquarters, creating a secure computer network for the production staff, etc.) and I like to point back to the education that I got from Peabody for helping to make the audio the “easy” part of a gig.”
Neil Tevault | Technical director, NPR’s studio 4A
Neil Tevault has been a broadcast and recording technician for National Public Radio since 1996. He is currently the technical director for NPR’s music recording studio, studio 4A. Along the way, he has held several different technical director positions: Weekend All Things Considered, news operations, Sonic Solutions, Dalet, and music and entertainment programs. He has also been responsible for several remote live broadcasts and recordings, with the highlight being the week of live broadcasts from Salzburg, Austria, for the celebration around Mozart’s 250th birthday.
“Peabody gave me a wonderful education in audio theory and musicianship… but what made Peabody so valuable to me was its ability to put all of that knowledge and deep understanding in to context. Whether it was a masterclass with an engineer at the top of the industry, a recording session with a student ensemble, or a day spent with a hammer in my hand building a recording studio in the work-study program, I gained knowledge that I could put to use immediately and continue to use every day. Thank you Peabody!”
The flexible schedule at Peabody allowed Rob Byers to work at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., where he engineered live national broadcasts, produced field recordings, and recorded heads of state and high-profile musicians. When he completed his master’s degree in 2005, he started recording jazz albums for many regional jazz artists, some of them Peabody alumni. In 2008, he moved to Minneapolis to work with Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media.
“The knowledge and training that I acquired as a student at Peabody form the foundation of my diverse professional work today.”
Lawrence Manchester | Engineer/Mixer
To date, Lawrence Manchester has engineered the scores for three Academy Award-winning films: Martin Scorsese’s fourtime Oscar-winning best picture, The Departed (original music by Academy Award-winner Howard Shore); Frida (winner, best original score, Elliot Goldenthal); and The Red Violin (winner, best original score, John Corigliano). He recently recorded and mixed Danny Elfman’s score for Ang Lee’s film Taking Woodstock; worked with composer Elliot Goldenthal on music for the film The Tempest; and mixed and recorded the score for Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story in New York City.
“I graduated from the undergrad program in ’98 and now manage the firm-wide AV design and acoustics practices for RTKL. In addition to me, I have five other Peabody graduates working in the firm, so the program is very well represented. Most recently, I just hired one of the ’09 graduates, full-time, and he is doing very well. The professional AV design industry is one that many graduates have entered and is, in my opinion, one of the more lucrative options out there for graduates.”
Tony Warner | RTKL Associates
Tony Warner is principal, special systems design, for RTKL Associates, the fifth largest architectural and engineering firm in the world.
“Nowhere else can you immerse yourself in the classical music experience, combined with the intellectual challenge of classes on the Hopkins campus. The caliber of musicianship is phenomenal, and, my God, the mic locker is unparalleled!”
Angela Taylor | Skinny Girl Audio
Angela Taylor has worked for the Discovery Channel, America’s Most Wanted, and ABC News, as well as serving as faculty at the Peabody Preparatory and the University of Maryland. She now is owner of her own Pro Tools-based studio, Skinny Girl Audio, in Baltimore.