Artist Spotlight - Mike Tyo
To us, he was a “hidden gem” of the North Country, but to those who have seen him in action, he is a prodigy.
Our December Artist Spotlight, Mike Tyo, is an exceptionally proficient, and also blind, organist and singer, who is the current organist at Adams United Methodist Church.
Mike was born in Watertown in 1959 and two years after he was already playing nursery rhymes on piano. His parents had gotten him a few different instruments in his youth but he eventually ended up settling on the piano and organ.
Mr. Tyo attended Watertown School District for a short time before being enrolled at South Jefferson School District, where he eventually graduated. In our interview he said that he believes that he is one of the first blind persons to complete a k-12 education at a public school. While at South Jeff, Mike had many great teachers, but one that especially stuck out to him was his high school band director that was hired in Mike's junior year.
Mike was evaluated both at Syracuse University and Crane School of Music where his mother’s suspicions were confirmed that Mike did have potential as a musician. Mr. Tyo eventually was accepted at Crane and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music performance with an emphasis in organ.
Mike has performed with a few local groups over years and spent 10 years on national tour for Technics Musical Instruments as a concert artist. While he was helping market their products through shows, clinics and workshops, he quickly discovered that his organ pedagogy was instrumental in meeting and surpassing the job requirements. He said he “wouldn’t have been able to pull off the things he can do without that job.”
Mr. Tyo currently serves at the organist for Adams United Methodist church, a job he has held for nearly 40 years! In 2003, the church got a new organ and Mike has loved playing that organ ever since. Mike commented that some people don’t even know what an organ is anymore and “the organ is basically dead unless you see it in church”. Now that most sounds can be replicated with a keyboard, there is often no need for any type of “traveling” organ.
Mike, who is blind, also commented that it is much easier for him to play the “older” technology instruments because newer instruments have a touch screen. The touch screen makes it difficult to impossible for someone without sight to be able to quickly navigate the instrument and bring out the sounds that can make a piece of music really sing. Take a listen to the first part of our video interview with Mike where he plays a Christmas piece he developed out of three themes on the the instrument and is able to essentially replicate an entire orchestra.
Mr. Tyo also works a great deal in musical production. In fact, one of Mike’s long-term friends, who recently passed away, solicited Mike’s services to get backing instruments for his gigs. So in a way, Mike might be in New York, but a “virtual Mike” would be playing music with his friend in Florida. That friend had initially met Mike when Mike had attended one of his gigs and got up to play some songs on their keyboard. It was later, by coincidence, that Mike put an ad in the paper looking to fill a music spot in a group and this future friend responded.
We highly recommend watching our interview to get more details on Mike that this article leaves out.
