Today we’d like to introduce you to Stratøs .
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started playing saxophone as a 10-year-old in elementary school. I played consistently throughout K-12 whether it was in school during the day or in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s youth ensembles at night. I continued through college and went on to get both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in jazz studies. It was during this these years that I won the Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award 3 years in a row (2019-2021), as well as the National Sawdust New Works Commission Contest (2020) and finally the ASCAP Johnny Mandel Prize (2021). While this all happened, I completed my masters in the spring of 2020. The music industry was incredibly difficult to be involved in at this time (and still hasn’t come close to recovering) because of the first COVID lockdown, so I decided to teach myself audio production (I started dabbling with it a couple years prior, but nothing serious) which lead to my first EP entitled “DiE.” After that, I released my first official LP entitled “Planets” on 10/01/2021 which lead to my debut live show as a leader at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC. A couple months later, I released my second LP entitled “Hohenheim Suites” on 5/6/2022 (the album was recorded in spring of 2020 but sat for a while due to the pandemic). The summer after I released the suites, I packed up all of my belongings and moved with my fiancé from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Los Angeles, CA. I’ve been here for two months and have met a ton of incredible artists. I’m currently building my home studio which will be the birthplace of my third LP, which is in the process of being written as we speak. And that brings us to now!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Personally, the trickiest thing I’ve had to deal with is my reputation. Since my (and everyone else’s) career was brought to a screeching halt from COVID, I became a producer which was fine because it’s easier for others to grasp audio production as an extension of music than the other discipline I picked up during the pandemic which is film photography. When I started shooting film, I never imagined that my reputation as a musician would suffer. Now, to be fair, this is almost 100% the fault of social media and the pandemic. Social media rewards those who can consistently pump out “content” that viewers can expect. This is a very hard feat and I respect those that can do it, But I’m awful at it. Not necessarily because I hate being on social media or that I’m not very online, but because I want to share ALL of the art forms, I’m involved in. I share saxophone playing, composition, audio production, and photography all in one place. Additionally, the pandemic happened when I was still in Michigan, so as a musician who just entered the industry but couldn’t do anything other than try to reach people online, I had to overcome (and still kinda am) this double-edged sword.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a saxophonist, composer, producer, and photographer. I specialize in ME. My sound, style, and vision are the ones I know how to make. I’m known for this as well as the records I’ve released so far. I’m most proud of my dedication to realize the vision I’ve set for myself, and that no one sounds like me. The way I see it is: there’s no one out there that plays saxophone exactly like me. And if they do, they don’t play saxophone and compose exactly like me. And if they do, they don’t play saxophone, compose, and produce exactly like me. And if they do, they don’t play saxophone, compose, produce, or take photos exactly like me. I 9as well as many of us) am unique just by following my own way.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
It doesn’t look great. The streaming music thing is a drag (for the uninitiated, what I’m referring to is that all of the mainstream music platforms like Apple Music pay artists FRACTIONS of a cent per stream. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of streams are needed to make a living wage). HUGE artists can’t even afford to tour, pretty much every avenue that’s beneficial to musicians has been commodified or dismantled entirely, and we’re in an era that musicians (and all artists, really) have to be their own manager, promoter, and press all while trying to keep up with the demands of everyday life (which for musicians often includes necessary, long, and tedious daily practice sessions). But who knows, maybe it’ll all work itself out in 5 years!
Pricing:
- Planets Limited Edition Vinyl Album: SOLD OUT
- Hohenheim Suites Limited Edition Vinyl Album: $35
- Film Photo Prints: visit www.stratostones.com
Contact Info:
- Website: https://stratostones.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stratostones/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stratostones
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/stratostones
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoODhMOrJxGh7Q-c8awaA4w
- Other: https://stratos.darkroom.tech/
