Charlie Rosen (musician)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other people with the same name, see Charlie Rosen.

Charlie Rosen
Born (1990-07-20) July 20, 1990 (age 31)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
EducationBerklee College of Music
Occupation
  • Musician
  • composer
  • arranger
  • orchestrator
  • music director
  • music producer
Years active2005–present
Websitewww.charlierosen.com

Charlie Rosen (born July 20, 1990)[1][2] is an American musician, composer, arranger, orchestrator, musical director, and music producer. He is best known for his work on Broadway, where he has worked on Be More Chill, Prince of Broadway, and American Psycho. He is also the leader of The 8-Bit Big Band, a jazz orchestra specializing in video game music.[3][4][5]

Early life[]

Rosen was born in Los Angeles, California as the son of a bassoonist and organist. He was taught piano by his mother starting from the age of three. At the age of fifteen, he joined the onstage band for the Los Angeles production of 13. He moved to New York at the age of seventeen to make his Broadway debut in 13, where he was a swing.[6][7] He later attended Berklee College of Music for four semesters.[1]

Career[]

Rosen began his professional career as a swing musician for the bass, guitar, and percussion tracks of 13.[1] Starting in 2012,[8] he was the bandleader of Charlie Rosen's Broadway Big Band, where he arranged classic musical theater numbers into music that could be performed by a jazz orchestra with Broadway performers as the vocalists.[7] As of April 2019, he primarily features as a guitarist in the Broadway musical Be More Chill.[1]

Rosen can play about 70 musical instruments including the "flugelbone", melodica, Fender Rhodes, and theremin.[1] Of these he has described the flugelbone as his "orchestrating secret weapon" due to its ability to utilize variety of timbres. However, he considers himself primarily a bassist but uses the range of instruments in his repertoire to improve the quality of the music he is able to create.[1]

Rosen is also the composer on 2021 comedy film Here Today.[9]

The 8-Bit Big Band[]

In 2017 Rosen founded The 8-Bit Big Band as a jazz and pops orchestra,[10] featuring from 26[11] to 65 musicians who cover video game songs from franchises such as Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Pokémon.[12][13] The band has a presence on YouTube with over 142,000 subscribers and 13,000,000 total views as of March 2021.[5] In May 2018, the 8-Bit Big Band released its first album entitled Press Start! In June 2019, the band released its second album Choose Your Character which covers music from Donkey Kong Country, Duck Tales, Sonic The Hedgehog, Pokémon, Portal, and more.[14]

Credits[]

Theater[]

Year(s) Production Role Location Category Ref.
2008 13 Swing bass, guitar, percussion Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre Broadway [6]
2010 Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson Associate conductor
Bass 		[15]
2011 The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful (And Her Dog!) Orchestrator
Track production 		John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Regional [16]
2012 One Man, Two Guvnors Lead guitar/drums/lead singer (understudy)
Music director
Bass 		Music Box Theatre Broadway [17]
2012 Cyrano de Bergerac Music American Airlines Theatre [18]
2013 The Black Suits Music director
Orchestrator 		Center Theatre Group Regional [19][20]
2014 Soon Arranger
Orchestrator 		Signature Theatre [21]
2015 Honeymoon in Vegas Orchestrations Nederlander Theatre Broadway [22]
2015 Be More Chill Orchestrator Two River Theater Regional [23]
2015 The Visit Guitar/Zither/Mandolin Lyceum Theatre Broadway [24]
2015 A Little More Alive Orchestrator Barrington Stage Company Regional [25]
2016 American Psycho Associate music director
Keyboard/Guitar 2 		Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre Broadway [24]
2016 Broadway Bounty Hunter Music supervisor
Orchestrator 		Barrington Stage Company Regional [26]
2017 A Legendary Romance Music director
Orchestrator 		Williamstown Theatre Festival [27]
2017 A Midsummer Night's Dream Orchestrator The Public Theater Off-Broadway [28][29]
2017 Prince of Broadway Associate orchestrator Samuel J. Friedman Theatre Broadway [30]
2018 Be More Chill Orchestrator
Music supervisor
Guitar 2/Ukulele 		Pershing Square Signature Center Off-Broadway [23]
2018 Miss You Like Hell Orchestrator The Public Theater Off-Broadway [31]
2018 Pamela's First Musical Orchestrator Two River Theater Regional [32]
2019 Be More Chill Orchestrator
Music supervisor
Guitar 2/Ukulele 		Lyceum Theatre Broadway [23]
2019 Broadway Bounty Hunter Music supervisor
Orchestrator 		Greenwich House Theater Off-Broadway [33]
2019 Moulin Rouge Co-orchestrations (horn) Al Hirschfeld Theatre Broadway [34]
2019 Love in Hate Nation Music Supervisor
Orchestrator 		Two River Theater Regional [35]
2019 A Strange Loop Orchestrations Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway [36]

Television[]

Year(s) Title Role Ref.
2017–2018 The President Show Composer
Music producer 		[37]
2018 The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Track production
Guitar recording 		[38]

Film[]

Year(s) Title Role Ref.
2021 Here Today Composer [9]

Awards and nominations[]

Year Award Category Nominated work Result Ref.
2015 Drama Desk Award Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations Honeymoon in Vegas Nominated [39]
2018 Miss You Like Hell Nominated [40]
2019 Be More Chill Nominated [41]
2020 Obie Award Special Citation A Strange Loop Won [42]
Tony Award Tony Award for Best Orchestrations Moulin Rouge! Pending [43]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Harris, Elizabeth A. (April 14, 2019). "The Modern Music Man: He Plays 70 Instruments and Video Games, Too". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 30, 2019.
  2. ^ "Charlie Rosen on Instagram: "