Bradley Joseph

Bradley Joseph (born 1965) is an American composer, arranger, and producer of contemporary instrumental music.

His compositions include works for orchestra, quartet, and solo piano, while his musical style ranges from "quietly pensive mood music to a rich orchestration of classical depth and breadth".

Active since 1983, Joseph has performed in front of half a million people around the world.

Bradley Joseph was born in Bird Island, Minnesota and raised in Willmar, Minnesota, graduating from Willmar Senior High School in 1983.

He learned how to play piano from a how-to piano book he found in the piano bench.

One morning his father taught him how to play a boogie-woogie blues tune and by nightfall he could play the entire piece.

He started playing classical piano at age eight, taking lessons for a year and a half but was self-taught thereafter.

While in junior high, he took a concert field trip where he saw Buddy Rich perform.

He recalls, "I sat in the first row and when Buddy's sax player stood up to take his first solo something just clicked — the world closed in around me. I felt the power of music and knew that it was something special, a gift to be shared."

Joseph played piano for the jazz band and choir in high school, and trombone through high school and college.

When he picked up the horn, he got a whole new perspective on music, gaining insight into all the different timbres available, which was invaluable to him when he started working with orchestras.

The first band he was in was a wedding dance band which allowed him to gain experience in every different style of music from polkas to rock and roll to jazz classics.

After attending Moorhead State University as a music major, he led some of his own bands around the area that toured Midwest nightclubs.

He played sax and guitar in some of these earlier bands but left them to concentrate on just the piano/keyboards.

Later, he started performing with guitarist Dugan McNeill, whose U2-like group was signed to Polygram.

He played various instruments in rock bands throughout the Midwest until 1989 when Greek composer Yanni hired him for his core band after hearing a tape of his original compositions.

In 1989, Joseph recorded his first demo tape and sent it off to Greek composer Yanni, who was looking for someone to replace keyboardist John Tesh, as Tesh was launching his own solo career.

When Yanni heard Joseph's compositions and arrangements, he was hired over the phone to join his core band, without ever meeting.

After moving to Los Angeles at age 23, he composed, arranged, and performed alongside Yanni for more than six years, performing in-concert with a number of notable symphony orchestras, touring throughout the U.S. and abroad as Yanni gained worldwide fame.

His first show was at the Starplex in Dallas with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra filming a video project.

"It was a real trial by fire for me", said Joseph.

"First show + 10,000 people + TV cameras equals NERVOUS."

He told Jane Fredericksen of the St. Croix Valley Press that "It was a big jump, you don't really realize it at the time, but there's no in-between — going from playing nightclubs to arenas."

Some of these early tours included the Reflections of Passion, Revolution in Sound, Dare to Dream, Yanni Live, The Symphony Concerts 1993 and 1994 concert tours, as well as a performance in Germany that was broadcast throughout Europe and seen by 30 to 40 million viewers.

Joseph appears on the 1994 multi-platinum album and video, Live at the Acropolis. He recounts, "When I reflect back over the years, one of the high points that stand out include performing at the Acropolis with Yanni. Imagine all these different cultures coming together with the challenges of language, equipment, travel, and weather problems. I still picture the police running their dogs through the dressing rooms to sniff out any bomb possibilities right before the show. People still come up to me and comment how that show has affected their lives."

In the band, Joseph covered a lot of the keyboard parts that Yanni could not for lack of hands in the shows.

He assisted with the task of managing the 30 or more synthesizers onstage, and helped layer with the orchestra to create a "full-bodied, live-effect sound".

He did have to adjust some parts that did not work well in a live situation and worked extensively on programming sounds for all keyboardists.

Joseph Said that "Yanni gave us musicians a great deal of freedom to expand the music as well. If you listen to the original recordings he did and what we ended up with in our live recordings, you can really hear the musician's input."

Joseph also spent five years as musical director and lead keyboardist for Sheena Easton, including a 1995 performance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Joseph is the founder of the Robbins Island Music label.

His solo career began when he independently released Hear the Masses, featuring many of his Yanni bandmates.

This debut was followed by Rapture, an instrumental album recorded with a 50-piece orchestra in which Joseph wrote and conducted all of the scores.

It was released on the Narada label and reached ZMR Airwaves Top 30.

He was a featured concert keyboardist with Yanni through six major tours, most recently in 2003 for the 60-city Ethnicity tour.

He appears in the multi-platinum album and concert film, Live at the Acropolis.

His music is included in multiple various-artist compilation albums including the 2008 release of The Weather Channel Presents: Smooth Jazz II.

Paint the Sky was nominated for Best Neo-Classical Album in the 10th annual ZMR Music Awards.

He has produced numerous CDs/DVDs and piano books.

A number of subsequent recordings including Christmas Around the World and One Deep Breath also held positions on ZMR's Top 100 radio chart, with the most recent being Paint the Sky which debuted at #15 in April 2013.