Hall of Fame

Barry Nease is the arranger for Olympic gymnasts from around the world including the 1996 Atlanta Olympics US Gold Medal winning team.

In 1991, I began working with world-renowned gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi (Nadia Comanici, Mary Lou Retton, Dominique Moceanu etc.) doing virtual orchestrations for US National Team floor-ex routines. I did all of the music for the 1992 Bronze Medal winning US Olympic Team and in 1996 did all of the music for the famous Atlanta Olympic’s Gold Medal US Team. I now work with athletes from around the world.

Gymnastics is a sport where the piano traditionally is the dominant instrument. Early on, I worked with dozens of pianos from excellent sound designers. William Coakley’s Volume 1 pianos became the studio’s standard. When he released Volume 2, the Fazioli became my classical piano of choice.

Volume 3 was a revolution. The “BNCE” pianos, very simple single layer pianos, became my absolute all time favorite pianos for all Rock and Roll, Swing, Pop – anything up-tempo. The commercial value of these pianos is unbelievable. The En pianos (50 megs) became the outstanding piano for any classical application. They are, in fact, the only sampled pianos I have ever played that stand on their own – the sound is absolutely beautiful.