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    Darren Solomon

    COMPOSER / BASS / KEYS

  • Darren Solomon is a Brooklyn-based composer, producer, bassist and keyboard player. His professional career began at the age of 19, when he joined the touring band of music legend Ray Charles as his bassist. After two years on the road, completing a music degree from NYU, and another four years of touring with Barry Manilow, he began working as a composer. He's earned a Best Music Clio and a Cannes Gold Lion, scoring ads for clients like Google, AMEX, Pepsi, L'Oreal, Honda and MnM's.

     

    Darren and co-composer Chris Jordão wrote the score for the Netflix series Invisible City, which premiered in the top 10 Netflix shows internationally in Feb 2021.

     

    He is Creative Director and Partner at Quiet City Music + Sound, a music production house with studios in New York and San Paulo, Brazil.

     

    Maintaining an avid interest in the intersection of art and technology, Darren created the crowdsourced web-based music project In Bb 2.0, which became a viral hit, featured on NPR, CNN, and the Evolution of The Music Video series at BFI, London.

     

    As a venue for his songwriting and production, he created the project Science for Girls, which was featured in Electronic Musician and KCRW's Song of The Day.

     

    Other highlights in a unique career include producing and DJ'ing the music for the H&M x Balmain runway show, composing the theme to A&E's Parking Wars and curating for the inaugural season at the innovative Brooklyn venue National Sawdust. As a visiting artist at SUNY Purchase, Darren enjoys working with the next generation of musicians and producers, teaching masterclasses in music production and composition.

     

    Darren enjoys maintaining a multi-faceted career in music, including performing, exploring applications for music in new media, composing for dance companies, and curating and producing live shows.

  • video reel

  • live performance

    I regularly perform live around the city, here are some clips!

    H&M x Balmain Runway Show

    I produced the music and DJ'd the show, working with Balmain Creative Director Olivier Rousteing and choreographer Normann Shay.

    3 Legged Dog gallery performance

    Live electronic set with visual artist Matt Romein

    Hip Hop Tribute to Miyazaki

    A night of Hip Hop inspired by Miyazaki films, here featuring Baxter P Wordsworth.

    Aether Dance Company

    Original score for motion capture dance company Aether, performed live at National Sawdust.

  • web projects

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    I created a collaborative music project called In B Flat 2.0

    The videos for the site were created by me and people from all over the world. The project was featured on NPR, CNN, and Google Creative Lab's 87 Cool Things On The Web. Hear my interview on NPR's Weekend Edition.
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    As a visiting artist at Northern State University, I worked with the students to create marker/music, a music and Google map mashup.

    Covid Jamz. A few projects and collabs, to stay creative and connected during quarantine.

    I wrote Everything Bad But Forever, a program written in p5.js that generates an infinitely long drug commercial. Using a data set of the text from 75 actual drug ads, it algorithmically creates weird and horrifying side effects and recites them over a random selection of stock footage. The drug names are generated from a data set of 100 actual product names. Here's some footage of its output.

  • remixes/mashups/tidbits

    assorted tracks for your listening pleasure

  • science for girls

    This is Science For Girls.
    I wrote, produced, and performed most of the album, and each track has a different singer.
    Read an article in Electronic Musician about the production of the album.

  • tours

    I've been fortunate to play bass with a few of the greats, here are some clips!

    With Ray Charles at the Paris Jazz Fest

    With Ray Charles on The Tonight Show

    With Olivia Newton-John on the Dennis Miller Show

    With Barry Manilow Live at Wembley

  • tours

    I got my start in music when I joined Ray Charles' band, playing bass on tour with him for two years. I later worked with jazz, latin, and pop artists around NYC and on tour. Here are a few clips, including work with Ray Charles, Olivia Newton-John, and Barry Manilow.