One valuable aspect of IAR’s Audio Recording and Production program is that our graduates are able to launch their careers in many different areas of the music business: professional recording studios, record labels, radio, television, audio post-production, corporate events, and others. One important and growing area of opportunity is the ‘live sound’ end of the business, and IAR has developed relationships with many of New York City’s top venues, among them the B.B. King Blues Club, The Apollo Theater, Birdland, and Webster Hall.

This article focuses on the Highline Ballroom, located along the High Line, a 1.45-mile elevated rail line in west Chelsea, where trains stopped running in the 1980s and which is being converted into an above-ground public park scheduled to open this year. The Highline Ballroom has been a growing attraction for international and local entertainment; Amy Winehouse, Mos Def, Coheed and Cambria, and Stevie Wonder are among the performers who have appeared there.

Justin Lizama, the production manager at the Highline Ballroom, has hired a steady stream of IAR students, two of whom, Neil Aviles and Dave Daughtry, are presently stage technicians. Justin likes to find graduates who “thirst for live audio knowledge to complement their studies at IAR and who are ‘go-getters,’ because this is a business that waits for no one.”

The Highline Ballroom gives IAR graduates the chance to work and learn from a professional staff with diverse experience and backgrounds, to work hands-on with state-of-the-art equipment, and to contribute to large-scale events for many of today’s popular artists. For more information on the Highline Ballroom and upcoming shows, visit highlineballroom.com. IAR students approaching graduation should inquire about opportunities at the Highline Ballroom in the placement department on the second floor.