Jay Classic is a Swiss songwriter, designer, record producer and filmmaker.
Jay Classic was born and raised as “Jan Locher” in the Swiss Canton of Valais, a few miles north of the famous Matterhorn mountain. Thanks to his parents, he discovered the love for music and film very early and naturally. As a young boy he loved playing on his mother’s Hammond organ or pressing the buttons of his father’s video camera.
As a little boy, he attended a concert with his family and saw someone playing the pan flute, the instrument consisting of multiple pipes. He was totally amazed by the overwhelming sound of this instrument, and his parents enabled him to have musical training. Today he still loves playing the pan flute – as well as many other instruments which he took up over time.
His interest in music and film began at an early age, and his parents continued to nurture his talents. At age fourteen, during a one year stay in Canada, the local school was fully equipped with new iMacs (iMac G3’s). One day his teacher showed up with a digital camcorder, plugged it into the computer and edited a video! Impressed by this newly available magic, he soon edited his first video on a computer. Back in Switzerland he applied this “new” skill at school, filming his teachers and fellow students and selling them the DVDs. Today, his camera work can be seen on several European TV stations like ARTE, ZDFinfo, SRF or in his music videos.
At age nineteen he received his Swiss Federal Maturity diploma. His final project was about the physics of the flute. He had a keen interest in discovering and learning new things and later majored in physics at the University of Bern, Switzerland. During his university studies he was able to benefit from an academic exchange at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France. During a brief visit to Boston to see his former professor who was at MIT at the time, he stumbled upon a group of Berklee College of Music students who were singing and recording a song on the streets. The next day, one of these students was kind enough to teach Jay Classic some advanced audio recording and editing techniques. Back in Switzerland he further trained himself while composing and producing music for the biggest air show in Switzerland; he worked for a team called the “Classic Formation” – a three-vintage-aircraft formation. He played his musical compositions at the airshow while functioning as a commentator in front of over 100’000 people.
While working as a consultant at a leading Swiss ICT consulting firm, he spontaneously wrote and produced a song which aimed to attract new employees. Soon thereafter, Jay Classic’s “hidden talents” leaked to the bosses, and he received many more challenging and fun projects besides his main work. Today Jay Classic’s knowledge has led to the launching of two firms: Alytico, a Swiss data analytics and consulting firm as well as MotionRhythm, a media and publishing company.
During a creative workshop in the Swiss Alps with the singer, songwriter and personal coach Mike Shery, Jay Classic wrote an early draft of the music for the song “Fly with me” and finished a first version of the song by the end of the day. He played it to Mike Shery who immediately began to sing along. They both decided to make their first “hit-attempt” with this song. Fingers crossed! Jay Classic has a lot of new songs and projects up his sleeve. We all are curious to see what happens next!
