Growing up, Drew Silverstein, ’16BUS, was determined to be either a fighter pilot or a composer — and while his pilot aspirations never came to fruition, that “soaring” ambition enabled him to take his dream of becoming a composer to entirely new heights.
As co-founder and CEO of the music technology venture Amper Music, Silverstein has built an artificial intelligence platform that empowers filmmakers, television producers, and advertisers to create original soundtracks for their content, all at the fraction of the time it takes to pore over endless lists of stock music. It’s unprecedented, even groundbreaking — but then again, Silverstein, who has yet to hit 30, has always been ahead of the curve.
After graduating with an undergraduate music degree from Vanderbilt back in 2011, Silverstein began working with one of Hollywood’s most respected film composers, Christopher Lennertz. But apparently assisting on A-list film scoring projects wasn’t enough to keep him busy, so Silverstein decided to co-found a financial services company specializing in options trading in his spare time; however, as this was a mere testament to his unparalleled drive, Silverstein had a vision for something much bigger — a vision that he shared with Hollywood composers, Sam Estes and Michael Hobe — a vision with the name of Amper.
Powered by artificial intelligence, Amper’s interactive platform gives content creators the opportunity to easily and meaningfully collaborate in the compositional process, generating an emotive and unique musical score tailored to any emotion or application. It’s the white-glove service and expertise of a professional composer paired with the accessibility and affordability of stock music.
Silverstein is quick to point out that in no way does Amper aim to replace human composers altogether — after all, he’s a composer himself. “Our goal is to provide some relief from the hours and hours filmmakers, producers, and advertisers typically spend scrolling through endless libraries of bland, uninspired stock music. In doing so, we hope to carve out an entirely new niche of our own.”
Three years of hard work and one Columbia business degree later, his platform has finally reached true commercial viability — the company raised its first round of funding in 2015, and after moving into a beta pilot release, the product has secured signups from a number of major media companies, publishing houses, and creative agencies across the country.
Silverstein is thrilled to see his technology actually providing an incredible amount of value to his clients. “We’ve had people say that this is a breakthrough,” he says. “And when you have customers who say: ‘This is unbelievable. This is a game-changer,’ and you watch their eyes light up when they hear the music…it’s pretty incredible to witness.”
To start collaborating with your personal artificial intelligence music composer, sign up for our beta at AmperMusic.com. You can also follow the extraordinary journey of both Drew and Amper on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, or check out the music on Amper’s Soundcloud.