We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dominic Amato. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dominic below.
Alright, Dominic thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I was born into a musical family. My Dad was a talented saxophonist and strong band leader and my Mother is a multi-instrumentalist and singer. My little brother Giovanni and I grew up in the music business and we spent a lot of time as children on the road and being around musicians and creatives.
I was blessed to be born with God-given musical talent. My Mom and Dad have recordings of me playing the drums at 2 years old. I’ve always loved music and was really fascinated when I listened to great musicians and compositions. I mainly played the drums and explored the piano growing up. I began teaching myself to play saxophone at 13 years old. I enjoyed playing sports too, and I even played a little bit in college for two years but my passion and true gifting came in music. I used the sports coaching and mentorship I received about discipline, toughness and team work, along with my Dad’s strong influence of being a person of high character and having strong faith, and I embarked on being a full-time musician at 22 years old. I had just gotten married to my beautiful wife, Tahirih, and decided that I wanted to do music for a profession. That was not easy!
The music and entertainment industry is very volatile but it can also be very rewarding. You really have to diversify your skillsets and create opportunities for yourself to monetize your talents. You are in business for yourself, and you have to really hit it hard or it can be very difficult to be sustaining for yourself and your family. Every gig and every opportunity counts.
My wife and I started having our children right away and I had to figure out how to consistently take care of my family. My wife was attending college and now a new mother, and I was playing gigs 5 days a week for along time. I was also studying and practicing as hard as I could to get better as a musician and do my best to cultivate a good reputation around town.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My pleasure, my name is Dominic Amato and I wear a lot of hats in the music industry. I am the Musical Director for the Platinum Award winning artist Sister Sledge. I’m also an artist, producer, featured sideman/session player, event consultant and an educator at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN.
In 2007, I read a book called You, Inc. by Harry Beckwith. In this book, Beckwith provides practical tips, anecdotes, and insights, that no matter what product you’re selling, the most important component of the product is you. This book really compelled me to begin pouring into my team and empowering them individually and collectively. Once you find people who are trustworthy, coachable and want to be a part of your brand, they will become an extension of your products and you can began to diversify your time and services. This is very powerful.
When you are in business for yourself, you must consistently figure out ways to diversify your skill sets, leverage your time and create residual streams of income. You need people around you to grow. You must invest in them and teach them how to represent you and your brand.
In 2007, my wife and I started our own entertainment company called ‘A’ Group Entertainment, LLC.
My wife, had a great idea about coming up with a name that did not pigeonhole us into any specific style of music or entertainment services. Anything that I’m associated with, within the entertainment industry, can be under the umbrella of
‘A’ Group Entertainment, LLC. Once our company had a name and a vision, I began to pour into my team around me and try to lead by example.
Specifically, in the entertainment industry, a lot of young talented people do not understand just how important the professionalism side of the business really is. I’ve seen so many people come out of college with a degree in music and have no clue on how to monetize their services and create a business for themselves.
Because of this need in our industry, it has created a lot of opportunities for me to travel the world, teach, play, consult, curate and contract a lot of talented people to go out and perform high-level services for professional clients. Professional entities want to work with talented, professional and dependable people. You better believe that if someone is staffing a tour, buying plane tickets, setting up recording sessions, producing corporate events, wedding receptions or private parties, they are going to want to work with a proven and professional person/band that they know will knock it out of the park. These are facts!
I’ve been a part of consulting, curating, producing, giving clinics, and performing at prestigious events around the world at a very high level.
I can honestly say that 23 years into my career, I can see that the principles of working hard, valuing professionalism and integrity, and pouring into your team will produce great results. Success doesn’t happen overnight, but with consistency, over time, you will see amazing results and opportunities unfold in your life.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Having to be resilient has always been a part of my life. I can remember being 12 years old and asking my Dad if it was ok to begin learning to play saxophone. Up until that point, I had been playing the drums and I’d become a pretty decent drummer. My Dad was against the idea of me becoming a saxophone player. He said, “Dominic, drums is your instrument, stick with the drums and you can become one of the best drummers ever.” I’m not entirely sure what all of his thoughts were on this matter and why he didn’t want me to begin playing sax, but I just knew in my heart I wanted to play that instrument.
At this time in my life, Dad was traveling quite a bit for work. One day while he was out of town, I found one of his saxophones in the basement and decided that I wanted to try and teach myself how to play it. I took it into my room and started trying to figure out how to put it together and make some noise out of it. A couple of days went by and my Mom heard my playing it and came into my room and said, what are you doing!? Your Dad is gonna kill you if he sees you messing around with his saxophone! I said, Ma, I really want to figure out how to play this instrument, please don’t tell him.
Two years went by and I had been down in that bedroom practicing and teaching myself how to play the saxophone.
One day, my Dads trip was cut short and he came home a couple of days early from being on the road. He walked into the house and he heard me playing the horn. He said to my Mom, what’s that? She said, “that’s Dominic, he really wants to play the saxophone.”
My Dad was a very strong Sicilian man and could be very intimidating. He came downstairs and opened my bedroom door and saw me standing there with his saxophone in my hands. To say that I was pretty nervous or scared was an understatement.
He said, what’s going on here? I said, “Dad I’m sorry, I really want to learn how to play.” He walked over to me and sat on my bed and said, “well, let me see what you’re doing.” I started to play a few notes and he just watched and listened. He fixed my fingering on the horn and told me to change my embouchure a bit. I knew he could tell that I really wanted to play and that I had been working very hard at teaching myself how to play this instrument. He stood up from my bed and just said, go ahead and keep it up, just be careful with my saxophone! He left my bedroom and that was it. I guess I had his blessing.
Over my career, I’ve had to be resilient in many different occasions. Especially, because I’m a husband and a father to our five children. The game of life and business will test you and it can be very volatile. Having to take huge risks and be resilient are also both very necessary parts of human life, and are the sources of human vulnerability. You must be willing to take risks, be resilient and get out of the “comfort zone” in order to really grow and achieve higher expectations. I have a lot of crazy stories about having to take big risks, be resilient and take massive faith moves in my life, but I’ll share that for another day or perhaps I’ll write a book.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I’m a firm believer that love and music are two of the universal languages of the world. Love, kindness, empathy and humility works on every inch of our planet. I’ve seen this to be true in over 40 countries and as the Musical Director for Sister Sledge for almost 15 years, I’ve witnessed the power of music bring millions of people together on a global basis.
You can’t taste music, smell it, touch it or see it, but anyone CAN FEEL IT. When a person looks at a piece of sheet music, it likely won’t affect them in any personal way, but the moment a gifted person begins to sing or play music, it can evoke feelings that make you want to dance, cry, work harder, bring you peace or unexplainably put chills on your arms. It’s a very spiritual connection to our human experience.
I’m also a devout follower of Jesus Christ. At the core of what it means to be a follower of Christ, is love. Loving God and loving people as you love yourself. I’m on a path of trying to learn how to love God and love people everyday. I’m grateful for the gift of music and with my faith in God, and my family, I’m striving to use love and music to bring hope, inspiration and be a light around the word.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.DominicAmato.com
- Instagram: Dominic_Amato
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dominicamatomusic
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominic-amato-1092349/
- Other: Please, also include my company website: www.AGroupEntertainment.com in this section of the article. Thank you!
Image Credits
MTV Lesley Posso