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Michael Whittaker

Born June 2, 1971, in Bellflower, CA, Michael ‘Whitty’ Whittaker is one of the people let alone musicians that is an actual product of southern California. Both Whitty’s father and grandfather were huge jazz fans, playing him Fats Waller, Jerry lee Lewis, Cal Tjader, and even ragtime, which led to Whitty beginning to take piano lessons at the young age 7 years old. Little did they know that their love for music would be the force behind the developing of a great musician and composer. As Whitty advanced in age and skill he began to practice upwards of 6-8 hours a day and was able to get his first playing ‘gig’ playing gospel in a church. It wasn’t apparent to Whitty that he wanted to play this music for a living, until he heard the band Koinonia with Abe Laboriel. After listening to the band he knew that music would play an intricate part in his life. After realizing that music would play a large role in his life, Whitty became both a jazz performance student and film scoring student at UCLA. The classical training and knowledge of orchestration that he obtained through his schooling at UCLA enabled him to become a staff composer for Fox for over 6 years. He has composed the score for over 300 television episodes and TV movies. Currently Whitty is independently scoring and producing for companies like Disney, Sony, NBC and Lions Gate Films. Whitty has won many awards such as the Telly award for his score to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, a Bank of America Musical Achievement award, International Association of Jazz Educators player excellence award, and the Clarence Brown Memorial scholarship for jazz. With all of his prior successes Whitty found himself desperately wanting to create a music that was more challenging intellectually, which led to the recording and creation of Michael Whittaker and The Modern World Project. Michael Whittaker and The Modern World Project first came together in late 2005 when Whitty started to record and work with a friend of his, Jimmy Branly, a world renowned drummer from Cuba. Born in Havana, Cuba in 1972, Branly began playing drums at the age of 13. He has performed with nearly every major group in Cuba in virtually every musical genre from straight-ahead jazz to fusion to hardcore dance music. With Branly’s experience in percussion instruments and complex multiple meter music made him the perfect choice as co-producer and thus they began to record in his studio.

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