Luke DeLalio in about 500 words

I was a weird little kid, more interested in creative things than sports and school, although I did well enough in school to get into Purdue University as a theatre major (of course!). I also went to Oxford University in England and studied Theatrical Production of Shakespeare, and eventually earned an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College. Goddard was where all the weird little kids went for grad school.

After college I worked as a guitarist until my hands started giving me trouble—I have genetically loose joints. It's a Hungarian thing. Loving music, I slid into record production and eventually audio engineering. For a decade, I freelanced all over metro New York, mainly working with indie rock bands—I was more interested in developing talent than anything—and I set up the audio engineering program at Five Towns College in New York. It was exhilarating: producing, engineering and teaching audio. Life made a lot of sense. I still teach audio privately and I write a well-regarded industry newsletter for Korneff Audio, New Monday.

However, at major label record deal payday time, I developed acute tinnitus and lost what I had dreamed of doing with my life since I first heard The Beatles' Revolver at thirteen. My hearing was and is still excellent, but the tinnitus was untenable. No more producing for Luke. This was definitely a low point in my life. I lost everything.

I rebounded into theatre—I had the degree, why not use it? I set up the BFA Theatre program at Five Towns College and soon was directing regionally and Off-Broadway as well as teaching acting. Directing was very much like producing records: it was coaching people to get to their best performance. I worked on everything from dramas to comedies to musicals and opera. I also coached acting in NYC, and wrote and produced my own plays. I loved this time of my life. It was a tremendous amount of work but thoroughly rewarding.

I'm a ridiculous autodidact. That the weird little kid with the messy desk, I discovered, could do just about anything in the creative arts. In short order, I became a professional photographer and ran the photo department of a newspaper chain for a while, taught myself web design and set up a web development agency that worked mainly for aerospace clients, and started painting (pictures, not houses).

I married, had kids, and needed something more stable and with benefits. Another major life shift: I scored a great gig running a gifted and talented arts program at a top 100 public high school on Long Island. This was a fabulous job for me, combining my love for and abilities in the arts, with my orientation towards helping people. My program was more like individual coaching for thirty-six super creative teenagers than lectures in a classroom. It was also a practical lab in how to bring out creativity in someone else, and overcome on the issues that keep people from doing what they would love to do with their lives.

As I approached my sixties, I felt too distant in age from my students to be effective. I retired from teaching, then suffered a personal tragedy, and then Covid hit. Time for another major life shift: audio came back into my life.

A former student and assistant, record producer/engineer extraordinaire Dan Korneff, approached me about setting up an audio software development company with him. Now I'm Number Two at Korneff Audio, working on our marketing, developing products, writing, producing and engineering again.

Strangely, I'm back in a world that I thought I'd never be in again. Isn't that a kick in the head?

And still coaching (certified). And still helping the weird little kids of any age do something they can be proud of with their talents and time.