AES Student Blog

Meet Tim Martyn, one of our honorable judges of the Student Recording Competition at AES139 in New York.

Tim Martyn is a four-time Grammy award recipient, including the 2014 award for “Best Engineered Classical Album”.  In a career spanning more than 30 years he has worked as engineer and producer with a wide variety of artists, from Yo Yo Ma and Renée Fleming to James Taylor and John Williams.  Mr. Martyn holds Bachelor and Masters degrees in performance from the Juilliard School.

In 1985, Mr. Martyn was appointed Director of Audio for the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Tanglewood festival, a position he still holds today.  He has engineered, produced, and consulted for several top American orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, and New Jersey Symphony. Martyn has produced and engineered projects for RCA/BMG, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, Sony Classical, and EMI/Angel, among others.  He founded Classic Sound Inc. in New York City in 1987, and Phoenix Audio in 2001, as classical remote recording and post-production facilities.

Recent projects include Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti, Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks with Dawn Upshaw and the Australian and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras (winner 2013 Grammy Award) , Renée Fleming’s Guilty Pleasures (Decca), WNET Great Performances Carnegie Hall at 120 with Yo Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Audra McDonald and the NY Philharmonic, Journey to the New World with guitarist Sharon Isbin & violinist Mark O'Connor (winner 2009 Grammy Award), Prokofiev Piano Concertos 2 & 3 with Evgeny Kissin and Vladimir Ashkenazy (winner 2009 Grammy Award), Vivaldi Four Seasons with Sarah Chang and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (EMI), the Carnegie Hall Schubert Recital with Evgeny Kissin and James Levine (Sony/BMG), and Mozart Piano Concertos with Jonathan Biss and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (EMI).  Recent post-production credits include the complete Beethoven piano concertos with Evgeny Kissin and Sir Colin Davis with the London Symphony Orchestra (EMI), Renée Fleming’s Homage album of opera arias with Valery Gergiyev and the Mariinsky Orchestra (Decca), Mozart and Schumann Piano Concertos with Evgeny Kissin and Sir Colin Davis with the London Symphony Orchestra (EMI), and Evgeny Kissin’s solo Russian piano album (Sony/BMG). Mr. Kissin’s solo album won the 2005 Grammy Award (Best Classical Performance without Orchestra).  Mr. Martyn won the 2009 Canadian JUNO Award for Classical Album of the Year (Solo/Chamber Music) for the album Homage with violinist James Ehnes.

Mr. Martyn has served on the Recording Academy NY Chapter Board of Governors, and on the teaching faculties of the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Tanglewood Music Center.