ABSTRACT
Started in 1986, by composer and musician David Chesky and his brother Norman, as a way to gain more artistic control over production and improve final product sound quality, Chesky Records has embraced a recording philosophy that stresses refined minimalist techniques over mastering and mixing excess. In that same year, David Chesky met pianist Earl Wild, who not only gave the younger musician some pointers on composition and performance, but also introduced Chesky to the people at Reader’s Digest, who, with Wild’s blessing, then allowed the Chesky to reissue a few previously released Digest recordings on Chesky mastered, audiophile-quality vinyl. The resulting products met with such widespread critical success that the company went on to reissue still more previously released Reader’s Digest recordings, and then do the same with a number of orchestral works that had been previously released by RCA.
