Marc Plotkin
Marc Plotkin is an award-winning songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer, and entrepreneur. From contributing to albums that have received Grammy recognition, to being listed as one of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Top 25 Entrepreneurs, Marc has had the honor to apply his creative skills to multiple sides of the music industry.
Born in Austin, TX, and raised in Philadelphia and New Jersey, Marc studied Music at the joint program between The Cleveland Institute of Music and Case Western Reserve University. He soon found himself working on projects for major record labels including Epic Records, Columbia Records, and Telarc International.
Marc regularly performs as a guitar-based singer/songwriter as well as an in-demand saxophonist with a deep background in jazz. He’s toured in a wide-range of capacities ranging from rock clubs to Carnegie Hall and has worked in the studio with artists including Sufjan Stevens, Ra Ra Riot, Panama Wedding, Hiromi and more. Marc's most recent release, “Minor Faults” took songs composed by him on the guitar but arranged for a group that had no guitars; instead opting for drums, bass, cello, french horn, trumpet, saxophone, and vocals. “Minor Faults” received more than 30,000 plays in its first week out online from solely word-of-mouth marketing, and the song, “Smokescreen” won Marc an American Songwriting Award.
Marc has also led a successful career as a technology entrepreneur. In 2010 Marc co-founded DecisionDesk, the first cloud-based system that allowed Universities to accept multimedia audition recordings alongside student applications. Marc brought DecisionDesk to hundreds of Universities worldwide, leading to hundreds of thousands of students using it annually to get their self-made music and films to Universities for consideration for acceptance. In 2014, Marc founded Wifi Music School, an online marketplace that provided the opportunity for students to take private music lessons exclusively over Skype with some of the world’s best musicians and music teachers. With Wifi Music School, Marc helped music students worldwide, from remote to metropolitan areas, receive and access instrumental and vocal education from these acclaimed instructors. In 2015 Wifi Music School was acquired.
Marc remains active in the startup scene as an advisor and is very active in the music industry as a Producer, Composer, and Performer. In his spare time, Marc has enjoyed guest-speaking and teaching for programs at Johns Hopkins University, the Academy at Carnegie Hall, and others. Publications including The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur Magazine, WOR Radio, and more, have all featured Marc and his work. In 2016, Marc was made a Professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he teaches Music Entrepreneurship in The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. He lives happily in Brooklyn, NY with his wife Alexandra and dog Bella, who howls when Marc plays the saxophone.
"I've been playing a classic Mark VI for over 15 years straight, resisting any offers to try a newer horn...until now. The Virtuoso by RS Berkeley is just such an incredible force to be reckoned with. While most horns either have a default dark or bright sonority, I'm finding the RS Berkeley to be a chameleon that will sonically go where I want to, fluctuating between powerful brightness or smooth darkness on command. I just can't attain that flexibility on other horns. I now have a saxophone that I can take into any musical situation and fit right in with whatever the song asks of me."