Biography
Although he is more often found playing the roles of producer and audio engineer these days, he is an equally accomplished music director, composer, arranger, and pianist, which has led to professional opportunities in over forty countries on six continents and, consequently, an extensive bureaucratic paper trail. No matter the hat atop his head, Dennis always strives to maintain the delicate balance between the technical and emotional aspects of musicianship and is in constant pursuit of a career that reflects his personal values.
After completing a B.M. in jazz piano, Dennis received an M.M. in Studio/Jazz Writing at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music, where his audio production and engineering career began to blossom. In addition to co-managing the jazz department’s recording studio, he was also active in South Florida’s rich performing arts scene, serving as a production assistant on a number of live and studio productions, including Larry Rosen's Jazz & the Philharmonic series, the Latin Songwriter's Hall of Fame Award Ceremony, and George Benson's latest album, "Inspiration: A Tribute to Nat King Cole”. During this period of freelance frenzy, he also frequently flexed his orchestration chops, contributing arrangements to performances and recordings by an eclectic range of artists, including Steve Miller, Bruce Hornsby, and Kevin Mahogany.
Subsequently, while exploring deeper opportunities for collaboration, he was offered the multifaceted position of music director, arranger, and bandleader for Dragone's recent circus/cabaret Taboo at City of Dreams in Macau, China. During Taboo’s creation process, he worked alongside director Franco Dragone (of Cirque du Soleil fame) and choreographers Jermaine Browne and Benoit Swan Pouffer to cultivate a unique musical landscape for each of the acts featured in the production, which ultimately ran for over a year. Following his tenure with Taboo, Tyler spent eighteen months criss-crossing the globe, pursuing serendipitous musical opportunities, avoiding American politics, and absorbing innumerable inspirations from the various cultures, traditional musics, and contemplative practices that he encountered along the way.
After an intensive period of meditation and personal reflection on his experiences abroad, Tyler relocated to San Francisco in 2017 to explore the unique opportunities present in such a prolific crossroads of music, technology, and world culture. He spent two years as the recording engineer/studio manager and a piano instructor at the McAllister Music Studio, and two additional years as the audio engineer/producer at Lumos Labs, where he was involved in the development of their mindfulness meditation app, Lumosity Mind. During this period, he could also be found engineering recording sessions at the legendary Hyde St. Studios and performing around the Bay Area as a member of Education Reform.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the global performing arts community was turned completely upside-down. Tyler spent all of 2020 turning lemons to lemonade and teaching himself software development and computer science in an attempt to find stability in this tumultuous climate, but he also has several musical projects on the horizon that he is excited to share with the world as soon as possible.