New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Serge Entertainment Group) Award winning composer, pianist and recording artist Jeffrey Michael has released two CDs to an overwhelming response exceeding his download expectations. June 2012 has been his best month yet with over 44,000 downloads for just the two titles. Since the release of Blue Escape - Relaxing Piano
Music and Piano Rock
Experience - Featuring Piano
Music from Famous Rock Songs, Michael has garnered over 400,000 downloads. Not only that, he has sold over 9900 physical CDs of the two titles as well. All of these feats were accomplished without major distribution or a major record label.
Michael describes his idea for Blue Escape was to make it "sound like a piano movie soundtrack inspired by the relaxing sea. I wanted the listener to feel an escape from reality and to feel truly peaceful when experiencing the album."
On the other side of the spectrum and to display his versatility, Michael created a second album titled Piano Rock
Experience covering his favorite rock songs with relaxing solo piano versions. Michael adds. "The response has been truly overwhelming and I look forward to recording volume 2."
Jeffrey Michael has performed for millions of people, sold over 750,000 CDs and downloads worldwide with his self-promotion strategy and record label Fireheart Music, and has composed original music scores for over 90 independent film, tv and video
game projects.
Michael grew up in Sterling Heights and Novi, Michigan. As a 2 year old, he used to bang on his Great Grandmother's piano. In 1983, she passed away and her piano was passed along to Michael's mother. She actually told him not to touch the piano for fear that he would damage it at such a young age. Naturally, he disobeyed her and began playing the piano by ear when he was 6 years old, going on to compose his own music by 11 years old. Jeffrey does not read music but rather is a self-taught musician who utilizes his excellent ear for his music and composes using a special shorthand that he developed as a child prodigy. Some of his musical influences include
George Winston,
David Lanz, Suzanne Ciani, Hans Zimmer,
James Horner, John Williams, and
Alexander Desplat.
At age 15. Michael broke his right hand and could barely use it to play piano for many months which caused him to develop his left hand much more fully than many pianists. Now he is known for his dexterous two-hand counterpoint melodies. That same year Michael borrowed $1,000 from his father, went to a recording studio and made a recording of his compositions that he began selling in his high school. In two weeks he paid his dad back. The next year he made another recording. By the time he graduated, he had sold 5,000 cassettes of instrumental piano music primarily to high schoolers!
In 1996 after briefly taking business classes at Eastern Michigan University and Schoolcraft College, Jeffrey Michael created Fireheart Music. Since then he has developed his company into an independent record label and music production company where he composes, produces and arranges piano CDs. Under the Fireheart label, he has released 16 piano CD's worldwide.
Since Jeffrey Michael was a boy, he always had a passion for film music and dreamed of someday being a film composer. In 1997 Jeffrey was interested in studying film scoring and was offered a full composition scholarship to Berklee College of
Music in Boston. However, when Berklee discovered Jeffrey did not read music he was told he needed 2 years of College level piano classes or he would fail out of Berklee. A Berklee film scoring instructor advised, "Jeffrey you want to compose for movies...you've got the talent...so go compose for movies." Michael did just that by gaining experience composing free music for some Michigan film school films as well as some local indie feature films.
Michael relocated to the Los Angeles area in 2006 and since then has composed for many films, tv and video game projects. Credits include Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Asics, Sci-Fi Channel, HIstory Channel, ABC, ESPN, Bravo and
Oxygen as well as at The Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals.
For more info about Jeffrey Michael, please visit https://www.fireheartmusic.com and https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyMichaelMusic.
