38. Programming Keyboards for Theatre Part 1 - John Eldridge: keyboardist, music director

If you've never played a keyboard for a modern musical, you may be wondering what the big deal is with programming.  If you HAVE played keyboard for a modern musical, then you know!  John Eldridge of Boston, MA definitely knows.  After spending hours preparing his keyboard for an upcoming show, he got the idea to save and rent his work to save future keyboardists the huge opportunity cost that is spent here.  He created the company Stage Sounds, a company that specializes in over 100 shows of downloadable preprogrammed keyboard files for MainStage software, with more titles each month, and additional services being developed.

John talks about this mysterious but fascinating aspect of a theatrical keyboardist's life that has gone from non-existent to a MAJOR part of the job in a few short decades, including his experience as a staff keyboard programmer for the NYC off-broadway production of Ride the Cyclone. Thanks to such a great conversation, this is presented in 2 parts, with part 2 coming next Friday!

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