Scott Cannizzaro’s career started taking form in the 1980’s, beginning with computer programming and progressing into music and audio production. In high school, Scott excelled in computer science, physics, and math. It was during this time that an interest and passion for music and audio engineering became evident. After playing with various bands and interning at a local West Haven, Connecticut recording studio, Scott attended the world renowned Berklee College of Music.
While at Berklee, Scott majored in music production and engineering, with his main instrument being guitar. Four years later, after graduating summa cum laude and receiving the MP&E production scholar award, he began his professional career at a major commercial recording facility in Boston called Soundtrack Recording Studios.
His early days at the studio were spent editing source music for the Aircraft Music Library. It was during this time that he was exposed to the exciting birth of cutting edge digital audio workstations. Being exposed to the Lexicon Opus, the New England Digital Synclavier/Post Pro, as well as the SSL Screen Sound and Scenaria in the early 90’s really prepared Scott to be a versatile operator of the new digital recording and editing platforms.
While still in Boston, Scott started a music production and artist development company called NoN, or nonmusic, with several other partners, and for the next 5 years honed his skills in music engineering and mixing. Working at both Paisley Park Studios in Minneapolis and Soundtrack Boston, Scott produced and mixed many artists from these two talent rich metro areas. Clients included Ben Orr (The Cars), Brad Delp (Boston), and being the engineer on a recording with Carly Simon produced by Phil Ramone for the Frank Sinatra: Duets album, which was one of the first ISDN vocal sessions done in history.
Scott was on the forefront with the early changing media and the internet, mixing one of the first EPKs or electronic press kit, for RCA and the Dave Matthews band. He also designed and coded websites for his own company and several others, with the nonmusic.com website being launched in 1994.
Scott’s music mixing skills translated well to the world of commercial post production, where he was able to apply his diverse technical and personal communications skills to a side of the business that can be very stressful and mentally demanding. He quickly gained a reputation as a talented ad mixer excelling in the new world of digital audio workstations, mixing spots for world wide brands like Toyota, Ford, Sony, McDonald’s, and many more.
In 1996, New York City became the workshop of choice, when he moved to the New York installment of Soundtrack Studios. New York’s energy and creative buzz allowed Scott’s work to become much more diversified through editing and mixing for long format TV, mixing ads, and tracking and mixing music over consecutive days. Over the next few years, Scott continued to specialize in mixing long format audio for clients like Discovery Channel, PBS, Lifetime, MTV, ESPN, and USA networks. He also regularly mixed television ads for leading advertisers like Verizon, American Express, Burger King, Priceline, and ExxonMobil to name a few.
As the television production audio business grew at Soundtrack, he’s had the opportunity to work on many TV series doing dialog replacement, such as Law & Order, Sex and the City, King of the Hill, Gossip Girl, and many feature films as well. In 1999, Scott received a multi-platinum record for his work on the “Jock Jams” compilations from Tommy Boy Records, and the American Masters documentary “Ella Fitzgerald: Something to Live For” was nominated for a Grammy in 2000. In addition, the CD Soul Call, by Chandrika Tandon, mixed and mastered by Scott, was nominated for a 2011 Grammy in the category of Contemporary World Music.
Scott is an avid aviator and earned his private pilot certificate in 2001, satisfying a long standing desire to fly and childhood dream. He currently resides in New York as a senior digital audio post production engineer at Soundtrack Recording Studios in New York City.