November 20, 2015 | Christmas Home Available

Tony DeSare, acclaimed singer/pianist and composer, has released his first Christmas album, Christmas Home, now available at Soundcloud, Spotify, and Apple music. Inspired by America’s most popular mid-century vocalists like Frank Sinatra, DeSare set out to recreate a more intimate sound and spirit of the 1950s and channel it into a new, “old-fashioned” Christmas album. Writing for a small studio orchestra – as Sinatra used on his Close to You and More album – rather than a large big band, DeSare’s collaborators on the orchestrations were Fred Barton and Tedd Firth. The recording sessions were also captured on camera; each song on the album has a corresponding video that will be released on DeSare’s YouTube channel throughout the holiday season. DeSare produced and mixed the album entirely in his home studio in upstate New York.

Christmas Home features several of the most beloved Christmas classics, including “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” as well as two original compositions.

Named a Rising Star Male Vocalist in Downbeat magazine, DeSare has won critical and popular acclaim for his concert performances throughout North America and abroad. From jazz clubs to Carnegie Hall to Las Vegas headlining with Don Rickles and major symphony orchestras, DeSare brings his fresh take on old school classics around the globe. DeSare has three top ten Billboard jazz albums under his belt and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, NPR, A Prairie Home Companion, and The Today Show.

Notwithstanding his critically acclaimed turns as a singer/pianist, DeSare is also an accomplished award-winning composer. He won first place in the USA Songwriting Contest, and has written the theme song for the motion picture, My Date with Drew, along with several broadcast commercials.

DeSare’s recent and upcoming appearances include the Pittsburgh Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Arizona Music Festival, The Smith Center in Las Vegas and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. DeSare releases new recordings, videos of standards and new originals every few weeks on his YouTube channel, iTunes and Spotify.

Tony DeSare is a Yamaha Artist.

 

Track Listing:

  1. I’ll Be Home for Christmas (Gannon, Kent, Ram) 3:56
  2. It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (Wilson) 2:45
  3. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – (Martin, Blane) 3:59
  4. Family Christmas Home – (DeSare)                                                 3:14
  5. Oh Holy Night – (Adam) 4:08
  6. White Christmas – (Berlin) 3:13
  7. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy – (Tchaikovsky) 2:01
  8. The Christmas Song – (Wells, Torme) 3:26
  9. Silent Night – (Gruber, Mohr) 3:06

Bonus Tracks

  1. Christmas For You and Me (DeSare)                                                       4:35
  2. 18 Versions of Jingle Bells (Live) 7:35

November 17, 2015 | Christmas Home available on Friday, November 20 - Pre-order available on iTunes

Tony DeSare, acclaimed singer/pianist and composer has released his first Christmas album, heavily inspired by the Frank Sinatra album from 1957 entitled Close To You & More. Close to You and More is a rarity in that Sinatra always recorded with large big bands or orchestras and this one was with a small chamber group centered around the famed Hollywood String Quartet featuring Felix and Eleanor Aller Slatkin (parents of famous conductor, Leonard Slatkin).

DeSare set out to recreate the instrumentation and spirit of Close to You and channel it into an “old fashioned Christmas album”. After a few months of painstakingly working on arrangements with Fred Barton and Tedd Firth, the group recorded live in Tony’s home studio just north of New York City.  The sessions were also captured on camera and each song has a corresponding video to go with to be released on his YouTube channel throughout the holiday season. DeSare also produced and mixed the album entirely in his home studio in upstate New York.

Christmas Home features several of the most highly regarded Christmas classics including I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas as well as two originals.

PREORDER ON ITUNES HERE: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/christmas-home/id1053566463

September 10, 2015 | Tony Plays for Music Education in Philadelphia

 

88 keys to bringing music back to Philly schools

By Brianna Spause on Sep 11, 2015 02:28 PM

FULL ARTICLE AND PICTURE HERE

Photo: Brianna Spause

Tony DeSare, jazz pianist, singer, and guest artist with the Philly Pops, performs at the kickoff for Keys for Philly Kids, a campaign to innovate music education in city schools.

Jazz pianist and singer Tony DeSare serenaded a small crowd in front of the Sounds of Philadelphia Mural in South Philly on Wednesday to launch a new School District campaign to innovate music education in city schools.

The free performance at the Philadelphia Horticultural Society’s Pop-Up Garden at Ninth and Wharton Streets kicked off Keys for Philly Kids, the fundraising arm of a new District initiative that seeks to bring music programs into schools that lack them and take a more modern approach to music classes, beyond band, orchestra, and chorus.

“The Keys for Philly Kids campaign will help us move our music programs into the 21st century with a major focus on engaging the 80 percent of kids that don’t traditionally enroll in an instrumental music program,” said Frank Machos, the District’s director of music education.

South Philadelphia High School will serve as the location of the pilot program, which Machos said would "serve as a scalable, replicable model throughout high schools across the District."

“As a large, comprehensive, neighborhood high school, [the school] provides all of the challenges facing successful implementation of urban music education programs," he said.

For a school that has produced well-known musicians like Marian Anderson and Chubby Checker and can tout 13 alumni as sitting members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the absence of a music program has been especially painful.

“We were hurt more by this because of all of the icons we had produced," said Marc Adelman, archive chair of the South Philadelphia High School Alumni Association. “It’s only just, right, fair, and appropriate that the launch of a reinstituted music curriculum begin with the ‘School of the Stars.’"

Students there arrived on the first day of school to a reinstated music program with instruments on loan from Yamaha and Jacobs music. Machos said an introductory music course was added to the 9th-grade curriculum. Electives based on growing careers in the music industry, such as therapy, education, and production, could follow.

The campaign would rely on “microphilanthropy, benefit concerts and other mechanisms” to help raise the more than $3.5 million needed to innovate music education at schools, said Machos.

The money will go toward buying traditional, as well as modern instruments, and sustaining future programming. A partnership has also been formed with the Philly Pops orchestra to supplement District music programs.

In a move that is part promotion and part public art, Keys for Philly Kids will be working with local communities to create street exhibits by taking outdated pianos from schools that receive upgrades and placing them in city streets for the public to interact with them. The street pianos, which will be technologically enhanced, will illustrate the power of bringing music back into Philadelphia neighborhoods and raise awareness of the District’s goal to keep it there.

Starting small at South Philadelphia High School, the music education innovation strategy seeks to find a permanent solution to the need for growth and innovation in music education in the face of the continued budget deficit.

"It's going to awaken the community to a sense of pride,” Adelman said. “It’s going to help the community realize the potential of their children.”

August 8, 2014 | Tony mentioned in Vogue

Tony DeSare and his band got a mention in Vogue Daily for being the featured performer at Charlie Shaffer's and Elizabeth Cordry's wedding.  Charlie is Anna Wintour's son.  Tony led a 7 piece band for an audience that included A list director, Bazz Lurhmann and designer Oscar de la Renta.  

http://www.vogue.com/culture/article/elizabeth-cordry-charlie-shaffer-wedding-in-mastic-beach-new-york/?mbid=nl_VO_Edit_Daily_070814&spMailingID=9621005&spUserID=ODE2NTM0NTU3NTUS1&spJobID=304176730&spReportId=MzA0MTc2NzMwS0#1

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