—Prolific Artist Composes and Performs With Disklavier, Motif—

BUENA PARK, CA (November 22, 2002)—Mike Garson is known—and revered—among both music professionals and aficionados as one of today's most eclectic and prolific composers. Perhaps best known as David Bowie's keyboard player—with whom he has toured and recorded since 1972's Spiders of Mars—Garson has created approximately 4,000 musical compositions, including sonatas, rhapsodies, etudes and a nocturne in every key. The 57-year-old Garson has also penned music for television hits that include Mad About You, Golden Girls, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and the ABC-TV movie Liberace, as well as films such as Stigmata, where he co-wrote the score with Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan. As one of the first players to embrace the Yamaha Disklavier, Garson uses the 9-foot concert-quality piano to record and play back real-time performances.

Mike Garson ‘Now Music’ maker

"The Disklavier changed my life," says Garson. "When I used to write with pencil and paper, my head always went too fast for my hands. But in the last five years I've managed to write 900 pieces on the Disklavier."

Garson approaches improvisation as a composition method, which he developed in 1995 under the NOW! MUSIC brand. This innovative approach to classical composing transfers the knowledge of improvisation into the classical realm. "It's my own way of composing," he explains. "I sit down at a Yamaha Disklavier and improvise classical pieces. It's my own way of composing. These pieces are entirely improvised, but they sound written. I'm not concerned with whether I'm playing jazz, rock, classical, or pop, as long as it is creative."

Garson is currently touring worldwide with David Bowie to promote his latest release, Heathen. While on the road, Garson performs on the Yamaha Motif 8 Music Production Synthesizer. Since the synthesizer's introduction, it has become the tool of choice for many of the world's top performers, onstage and in the studio.

"The Motif is a great instrument—I also use it at home for recording—and I love the sounds and performances in there," adds Garson. "It just sounds good to me!"

The New York native studied classical piano with Leonard Eisner of the Juilliard School of Music, and began playing the piano at age seven. He studied classical music for ten years, graduated from Brooklyn College, served in the military, later joining a rock band Brethren and recording an album. Garson soon gained experience freelancing with a wide variety of performers, including Mel Tormé, Thad Jones and Annette Peacock.

In addition to his contributions on Bowie albums, including Earthling, Outside, The Buddha of Suburbia, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, David Live, Pin-Ups, Young Americans and Ziggy Stardust the Motion Picture, Garson has also been featured on the Smashing Pumpkins' Ex Machina, Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile, Seal's Human Being and No Doubt's Return of Saturn.