Michael Whittaker and The Modern World Project Who is the pianist who has performed behind one third of the artists on Billboard contemporary jazz charts? Michael Whittaker. His playing abilities and virtuosic style have landed him gigs and tours with the cream of the crop. Michael’s new album, Modern World, has drawn on his wealth of experience to create a dominant, powerful and beautiful new jazz sound. Modern World melds both virtuosic piano playing and a melodic and high energy blend of modern jazz. As both a jazz performance student and film scoring student at UCLA, Michael’s classical training and knowledge of orchestration allowed him to be a staff composer for Fox for over 6 years. He has composed the score for over 300 television episodes and TV movies. Currently Michael is independently scoring and producing for companies like Disney, Sony, NBC and Lions Gate Films. Michael 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. As a pianist, Michael is constantly playing in large concert settings with many of the top contemporary jazz artists. Some of those include Wayman Tisdale, Warren Hill, Jeff Golub, Midi Aibair, Eric Marienthal, Don Grusin, Paul Jackson Jr., Euge Groove, The Sax Pack with Jeff Kashiwa, Paul Brown, and many others. Also, from time to time Michael can be seen on the Jimmy Kimmel Live television show as a sub in the house band. On the Kimmel show Michael has played with artists like Cake, and Boyd Tinsley from the Dave Mathews Band. Other notable artists and musicians Michael has worked with include Lionel Richie, Alex Acuna, Abe Laboriel, Gary Meek, Brandon Fields, Cecilia Noel, Joey Heredia, Marco Mendoza, Bob Shepherd, Andrew Gouche, Everette Harp, and many others.