Ivan Wilzig - Music Career

Music Career

Ivan Wilzig began voice lessons at the age of 10. In his youth, he attended an Orthodox Hebrew school, where he sang in the synagogue choir. 3Ivan’s first professional gigs were singing atat Kutcher's Country Club in the Catskill Mountains, and then as a soloist at Town Hall in New York City with the Samuel Sterner Choir, where he sang a duet with the late Shalom Katz, one of the greatest Cantors of all time.] Later, he performed in both high school (Fiddler on the Roof) and college (Bye Bye Birdie) musicals. However, his father Siggi discouraged him from continuing in music as a career, wanting his son to have a more secure profession.

In 2001, Sir Ivan, also known as recording artist Dave Jurman, Executive Director of Dance Music at Colombia Records. Jurman introduced Sir Ivan to two-time Grammy-Award Nominee and record producer Ernie Lake, who produced Sir Ivan's remake of John Lennon's "Imagine," with Sir Ivan performing vocals. Tom Silverman, owner of Tommy Boy Records and co-founder of the Winter Music Conference, signed the track and released it on September 4, 2001. exactly ONE WEEK before September 11, 2001. "Imagine," sold 10,000 vinyl copies in its first three months and became a Top-40 hit on the Billboard Club Play Chart. It was the first time in history that any recording artist remade a Beatles record, or, a John Lennon song with a high energy dance track. By combining techno tracks with hippy lyrics, Sir Ivan had developed a new style he called “technippy.”

Sir Ivan's follow up single, "San Francisco," was signed by label owner Jellybean Benitez, and released on Jellybean Recordings, reaching #7 on the Billboard Singles Sales Chart. Sir Ivan’s third single, "Peace on Earth," was his first original song, and was released by Artemis Records under the leadership of Daniel Glass. It too, made the Billboard Charts, but, more importantly, reached number #2 on the DMC (Dance Music Community) World Chart, in the UK. The song was very popular in Ibiza, Spain, the world's epicenter for dance music afficiados.

Sir Ivan's debut full-length 15-track album, I Am Peaceman, was released in September 2010 under his own label, Peaceman Music, and was produced by FORD, who had earned 18 gold and platinum records throughout his own career. Sir Ivan’s single off the album, remake of "Hare Krishna" went Top #10 on the Billboard Dance Charts on April 16, 2011. The success of "Hare Krishna" in Billboard lead to an album distribution deal in 2012 with Worldwide Records, the leading music distribution company in India. “La La Land,” the first song co-written by Sir Ivan, is his biggest hit to date, having made the Billboard Top 40 Airplay Chart, the leading pop radio indicator.