Keith Hooper Fireworks Music Samples

Fireworks Music - In the News

Chicago Tribune, Monday, June 5, 1995, "Quest for organ ends on happy note," Phuong Lee Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, October 21, 1992, "A Life Set to Double Time - Finance Whiz Strikes A Chord With Music And Marketing," T.J. Howard Wall Street Journal, "Background Music Becomes Hoity-Toity" By LOUISE LEE
	Quest For Organ Ends On Happy Note Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1995
	Holly Hunter's character in "The Piano" had it easy transporting her piano from Scotland to New Zealand, as far as Chicago businessman Keith Hooper is concerned. The journey he took to bring a rare 19th Century chamber organ from a small village in Germany to Chicago took four years, reels of red tape and lots of smooth talking. Today, the organ built by a German firm, G.F. Steinmeyer in 1879, sits in the nave of Holy Family Church, at Roosevelt Road and May Street, where an inaugural concert held last week provided an emotional close to Hooper's longtime dream of owning an antique instrument. "I had goosebumps when I heard it," said Hooper, a musician and a vice president at Merrill Lynch. "I had to hold back the tears. "Ever since I studied music in Vienna, I've always wanted to be associated with collecting and restoring antique instruments. It just became a passion for me to try to find one." And it has been a blessing for Holy Family Church, which is undergoing a massive restoration and welcomed the prized instrument, said Rev. George Lane. "It creates beautiful music in a beautiful space," Lane said. "We're thrilled, and it means a wonderful enhancement of the church as a musical and performing arts venue, which the church has been from its earliest days." "Putting this organ to good use in Holy Family Church is the realization of a 10-year dream for me," said Hooper, who plays the oboe and English horn, and has even started his own recording label. The tale of how the organ found a home in the city's second-oldest church began in the rustic German village of Vaihingen, where Hooper's German friend, Jurgen Schwab, spotted it in a theater while touring the region. The theater, uncertain what to do with the 14-feet tall organ, had tried to transform it into a mountain to serve as a scenic backdrop for plays, Hooper said.	Persuading the theater to sell was a piece of cake. The arduous part, as Hooper discovered, was transporting it to Chicago. Hooper acquired the necessary permits, got insurance, and began to arrange to ship it. But then he ran into the first of many hurdles. The German government wasn't ready to part with what it regarded as a national treasure, Hooper said. But, Hooper argued, the delicate pine of the organ could not survive the humidity of the German region. The organ, with its original tin pipes and wood frame still intact, is believed to be one of three of its kind in the world that still can be played. Dozens of talks and a stream of fax exchanges flowed for two years before Hooper finally convinced Germany that Chicago would be the ideal home for the organ. Before sealing the deal, there was the final question of where to place the organ once it reached Chicago. Hooper found the answer while on a jog one day through his Near West Side neighborhood. He peeped in at the Holy Family Church, peered at its elaborate wood carvings and Gothic spires, and knew it was the place. The pine arches, gargoyles, and carvings atop the organ blended perfectly with the church's Victorian Gothic architecture, Hooper said. The church and organ were built in the same century and along a similar style. Transporting the 14-foot tall, 9-foot wide organ was the challenge. Its 500-plus wood pieces and tin pipes had to be pulled apart and individually packaged for safe passage across the ocean. The organ arrived in Chicago in several dozen crates and took three weeks to put together. Friedemann Guldner, an organ rebuilder, traveled out from Germany to reassemble the instrument. "You can't have a better place for this organ than here, acoustically and architecturally," he said. <Back to Top> \|<Back to Testimonial> <Back to Historic Organ Pictures>

A Life Set to Double Time - Finance Whiz Strikes A Chord With Music And Marketing," T.J. Howard Chicago Tribune, October 21, 1992
In comic books, lots of people lead double lives: Superman, Batman, the Hulk, to name a few. But move beyond the funny pages, and most folks have their hands full with just one identity. Except Keith Hooper. By day, Hooper, 36, is a financial consultant for Shearson Lehman Brothers. But at night he sheds his tortoise-rimmed glasses and signature bow tie, trading the ups and downs of LaSalle Street for crescendos of a different sort. Hooper is founder and creative director of Fireworks Music, which he describes as ``an international interactive-media company, specializing in marketing music in creative ways.`` Translated, that means Hooper leads double lives within his double life. His musical endeavors simultaneously span the scale from classical to new age. In September, Hooper, who plays oboe and English horn, traveled to Germany to record an album of meditation and church music with his pal, organist Jurgen Schwab. Now back in Chicago, he's putting the final touches on a Christmas jazz album. And he's working on ``Into the Wild,`` his second nature tape for the Field Museum of Natural History, which melds the roar of lions and tigers and bears with oboe and English horn. But it's not just Hooper`s eclectic approach to music that sets him apart. ``Keith is a real visionary,`` says Michael Fischer, assistant program director and music director at radio station WNUA-FM 95.5, which airs many Hooper tunes. ``Most musicians pray they get signed by a label and, if they are signed on, then hope they're treated right so they can become a financial success,`` Fischer says. ``If you're on the same label as Michael Bolton and Mariah Carey . . . whose record do you think the company is going to push?`` Hooper, on the other hand, has established his own record label, Fireworks Music, along with some unconventional distribution networks. ``Before Keith manufactures a product, he's already figured out how to market it,`` Fischer says. Heard in hotels, BMWs While Hopper's albums can be found in standard music stores such as Rose Records, they also show up in unexpected places. Like the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers. Since April, ``Intimate Partners,`` one of Hopper's jazz albums, has been used in hotel amenity packages. ``A gift of music is far more special and intimate than flowers or a box of chocolate,`` says Ellen Butler, public relations director for the new hotel. It also lasts a lot longer, adds Hooper, pragmatically pointing out that a CD won't wilt or be eaten. And because the album cover features the hotel's logo, it also functions as an advertisement, evoking memories of Chicago-and the Sheraton-each time the album is played, he theorizes. This fall BMW will use Hopper's ``Implosion`` album in a promotion for its 740i sedan. Corporate executives in the South will be asked to test-drive the new model (with Implosion conveniently placed in the car stereo) for a week. When they return the keys, they get to keep Hopper's album as a gift, reports John Sparks, a field marketing manager at BMW North America. Indeed, business acumen appears to be in Hopper's blood. His father, W. Stanley Hooper, owner of a material handling equipment company in Hamburg, N.Y., created the board game Stocks & Bonds in the mid-`50s. ``The game was designed to teach capitalism and entrepreneurialism,`` says the senior Hooper. ``With Keith, it certainly seemed to work.`` Yet musical aptitude also figures in the family tree: ``Everyone plays an instrument,`` says Hooper, noting that his father and his sister, a musical therapist, play violin and piano. And his mother? ``Mom, well, she bangs the pans,`` he quips.		Hooper, who graduated from Colgate University in 1978 with a double major in music and economics, likes keeping a foot firmly planted in both worlds. Fortunately for Hooper, his Shearson job doesn't keep him chained to his desk. ``I can be an absentee landlord,`` he says, explaining that as a money manager search consultant, he doesn't really care whether IBM stock moves up or down a point. ``I find pools of money and overlap these assets with money managers who can meet client needs.`` Relationships are what pay the bills, coupled with staying on top of the big picture. ``I get some of my best ideas from sailing,`` confides Hooper, looking down from his office on the 34th floor of the Sears Tower to Monroe Harbor, where his Merit 25 is moored during the summer. The computer revelation Hopper's financial and artistic realms collided head-on this summer.While visiting ``Backyard Monsters,`` an exhibit featuring robotic insects at the Field Museum, Hooper had a revelation: Precious air space was being wasted. ``You wouldn't watch TV with the sound off, would you?`` he prods. Hooper, who is Shearson`s consultant for the Field Museum endowment and pension accounts, persuaded museum officials to let him create a soundtrack to enhance the exhibit. The result: mosquitoes, whippoorwills and tropical rain forests synchronized with oboe and English horn. Yet it wasn't so much the challenge of creating bug music that delighted Hooper, but rather the chance to unfurl some innovative marketing strategies within the museum's venerable walls. Although the exhibit ended last month, ``Backyard Monsters`` tapes and CDs are still being sold in the museum gift shop, bolstering institutional coffers by $9.95 and $13.95 a pop. The ``Backyard Monsters`` project also introduced Hooper to a new instrument: the computer. Investing about $35,000 in a Quadra 700 Macintosh and a slew of software, Hooper has transformed a corner of his condo into a record and production studio. ``The computer does away with reel-to-reel recording,`` says Ron Pejril, Hopper's cohort and engineering consultant at Fireworks Music, explaining that high-tech electronics enable musicians to duplicate and manipulate sound with CD quality. The souped-up system also slices production costs; Hooper estimates that albums created on his computer cost about one-fourth what it would to go the commercial studio route. And while his music for the Field Museum has been a philanthropic venture, Hooper has plenty of moneymaking schemes in mind for his Mac: ad jingles and custom-made albums for retail stores are just a few. ``Irrepressible, he's irrepressible,`` says Hopper's father. ``I regularly ask Keith how he can work 28 hours a day and survive.`` `Never a dull moment` Hooper appears to be one of those souls with untapped energy levels. He doesn't just walk, he hustles. He doesn't just talk, he expounds, he extrapolates, he enthuses. He's always upbeat,`` adds his Shearson boss, J. Patrick Kearns, a senior vice president and resident manager. ``I don't think I've ever seen Keith when he wasn't happy.`` And he even finds time for a social life. ``There`s never a dull moment with Keith around,`` confides girlfriend Cathy Fitzmaurice, noting that Hooper is as multidimensional in his personal life as in his professional life. A laid-back Saturday with Hooper could include a several-mile run, watching him perform at a wedding, sailing, checking out an art fair and heading off to a party with friends. ``Luckily I have a high energy level too,`` says Fitzmaurice, manager of advertising and marketing services at Sweetheart Cup Corp. At times, Hopper's enthusiasm can be downright overbearing. ``He wears me out,`` says one colleague. ``You`re not always sure where he's coming from,`` adds a social acquaintance. But Hooper shrugs off such criticism. His greatest fear in life is to be pigeonholed. ``People think of `ROI` as `return on investment,` whereas I think of it as `return on ideas,` `` Hooper waxes. ``Most people are absolutely frozen to take a new idea and try it.`` And in fairness to his frenzy, it`s not as if Hooper hasn`t given an ordinary existence a shot. I've tried being just a businessman, and I've tried being just a musician,`` he says. ``Both times I was bored to death.`` <Back to Top>

Background Music Becomes Hoity-Toity

By LOUISE LEEStaff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
The "relaxing" background music at Au Bon Pain is one reason Elizabeth Maloney visits the coffee shop almost every day. So when Au Bon Painlast month started selling its background music on compact disk for $4.99, Ms. Maloney, a Boston accountant, "picked one up right then and there with my salad." Since then, she has bought three more copies as gifts.
Background music used to be some thing people endured as they ate,shopped or rode the elevator. The selections tended to bescientifically eviscerated popular tunes, whose No. 1 job was not tocall attention to themselves. The word Muzak, a trademark of a company that produces background music, became a disparaging term for bland, innocuous music.
Today, many upscale coffeehouses and retail stores, such as Starbucks, Victoria's Secret and Pottery Barn, see background music as a profit center and a marketing tool. The retailers invest in originalrecordings and then sell the music as a brand extension of theirambience. Star bucks doesn't just mean coffee anymore, says TimothyJones, the company's music specialist. Starbucks "is a record label ina way."
Last spring Starbucks sold out of 100,000 copies of its jazz CD. Injust two weeks in December, Au Bon Pain Co. sold 10,500 compact disksof its "Prelude to a Winter Morning" CD, prompting the 230-store chainto quickly produce another 12,000. The CD features holiday-theme music,including selections from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite." "If you canbring home a part of the atmosphere that attracted you to the store,[when you play it] you can think of that nice feeling you had when youwalked in there," says Jeffrey Pollack, a Los Angeles music consultant.
Of course, true music aficionados are likely to continue buyingtheir music at a record store. But many people don't know the names ofthe classical compositions they're humming, and are happy to letVictoria's Secret or Au Bon Pain make the selections for them. Thesepeople can find "going to a record store to buy Beethoven a complicatedjob," says Mr. Pollack.
Businesses generally buy their back ground music from companies like Seattle based Muzak Ltd.. which acquires the rights to and bundles music, and then leases four-hour tapes or pipes it by satellite directly to a rooftop receiver.
Most businesses choose a style of music-often classical, jazz orblues-but don't bother selecting specific songs or performers. Those that plan to sell their music, however, need top names. Starbucks, for instance, is licensing the Blue Note label from Capitol Records, a unitof London-based Thorn EMI PLC, and using tunes from the label's archives. Starbucks's holiday jazz CD includes songs sung by EarthaKitt, Nat King Cole and Marlene Dietrich.
Pottery Barn's "A Cool Christmas" CD includes "Jingle Bells" performed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra and "Santa Claus Got Stuck inMy Chimney," sung by Ella Fitzgerald. "Our customers are passionate about their home and about how it smells and sounds," says Kathi Lentzsch, an official of the housewares chain, which sold out of its Christmas CD in three weeks.
Different kinds of background music can have different effects on customers, says Jeff Ferguson, a programming manager at Muzak. Aclothes store might use adult contemporary tunes "to make customersfeel comfortable"; but "to make them feel excited or hip," modern rock or dance tunes might do the job, he says.
Selling classy background music can promote the retailers' image assophisticated and tasteful. "These chains are borrowing the glamour ofthe recording artists and putting them next to their logo," saysStephen Dessau, a New York marketing consultant.
The music Victoria's Secret plays and sells is integral to theatmosphere of the 650-store chain, says Monica Mitro, a spokeswoman forthe lingerie company. Victoria's Secret hires the London SymphonyOrchestra to record classical pieces, and then collects them in CDswith such titles as "Passion and Pleasures." Five of its albums havesold more than a million copies apiece.
"It¹s a natural pairing to sell nice lingerie with classical music,sort of as mood music," says Sherry Lazzaro, a homemaker in WarnerRobins, Ga., who, owns eight Victoria's Secret albums. But for captives of the retailers' back ground music-theemployees-these CDs might not be the perfect gift. Concedes Jeff Wheeler, who works at a Dallas Starbucks, "The Christmas music isgetting kind of old.
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