Josh Plotner

Josh Plotner is a New York-based composer, arranger, and saxophonist/woodwind player originally from Chicago. While he began his musical career focusing on jazz, he has since branched out into musical theatre, classical, rock, Latin (especially South American), and pop music, as well as many other genres. He has played on Season 3 of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, a previously unrecorded Stephen Sondheim song from "Assassins" (The Flag Song), played with Meghan Trainor while she was at No. 1 on the charts, and had many other collaborations with incredible artists, including: Esperanza Spalding, Valerie Simpson, Terri Lyne Carrington, Susana Baca, Tia Fuller, Ted Nash, Maurice Hines, Elliot Mason, dozens of Broadway singers, and many others.

At the beginning of his career, Josh focused mostly on jazz and classical music. Soon he picked up flute and clarinet, trying to treat each instrument as his primary focus. By his senior year in high school, he was playing in two orchestras, a nationally competitive classical saxophone quartet, three big bands, two jazz small groups, a symphonic band, a woodwind sextet, and many musical pit orchestras in addition to his lessons. This foundation allowed Josh to become extremely versatile at a high level.

After high school, feeling the need to specialize, Josh decided to focus solely on jazz, but that didn't last for long. In college, Josh discovered not only did he have a passion for the many kinds of music that he played; he also had a passion for learning languages (including French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean). Once he arrived at Berklee College of Music, he found himself at the most international school in America, and was highly influenced by the friends he made there. In only three years he graduated from Berklee Magna Cum Laude with a double major in Performance and Jazz Composition.

Josh lives in New York and is subbing on Broadway as well as playing in many bands. Recently he has begun playing many world instruments, and his collection is constantly growing. He has created a home studio and has used it to record for many film scores, commercials, and a wide range of albums. Josh continues to write and arrange music, and often works as an arranger for cruise ship singers on Royal Caribbean Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises. He has also begun a YouTube Channel of original multitrack arrangements featuring many of the instruments that he plays.