Jay Finocchiaro

From the Super Bowl to the Sydney Opera House, Jay has worked in a variety of projects for the live and recorded mediums. Growing up in Australia, Jay trained as a performer at the same academy as Natalie Imbruglia and Delta Goodrem. He also studied music (piano, saxophone, composition and singing) and received a music scholarship to attend Australia's prominent all-boys boarding high school, St. Josephs College in Hunters Hill. In his final years at high school, Jay was nominated for the Young Australian of the Year Awards. For the Gordon Frost Organisation, Jay was a cast member in the original Australian production (Sydney Season) of Christopher Renshaw's production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I, starring Hayley Mills. New staging and choreography was added by Jerome Robbins (director of the 10 Academy Award winning movie, West Side Story.) During its run in Sydney, at Her Majesty's Theatre, Mary Rodgers, daughter of Richard Rodgers, and William Hammerstein, son of Oscar Hammerstein II, reviewed the production. Christopher Renshaw's production went on to win 4 Tony Awards, which included one for best revival. Other prominent theatre productions included A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Baz Luhrmann (as an original cast member), and the grand football stadium production of Verdi's Aida, directed by prolific Italian film director, Mauro Bolognini, which featured over 1000 cast members. In 1995, Jay took part in the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations campaign, directed by Jeff Darling, which was presented to over 200 national world leaders, which included Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth II and Bill Clinton. 10 years later, he was introduced to the world of music video, working under the directorship of Heath Ledger. The film project was Seduction is Evil, She's Hot, a music video for British Australian hip hop artist, N'Fa Jones. Produced by Michael Gracey and starring dance sensation, Carolina Cerisola, the music video was marked as Heath Ledger's directorial debut. Over the years, Jay has worked in the music industry in various forms from events to music video, with which have starred numerous well-known artists across genres; such as Cat Stevens, Snoop Dogg, Pink, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, Mariah Carey, Prince, Celine Dion, Ed Sheeran, One Direction, Earth Wind and Fire, Garth Brooks, Charles Aznavour, Calvin Harris, Yo-Yo Ma, Angelique Kidjo, Iggy Pop, Eminem, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Spice Girls, Barbra Streisand, conductors Simone Young, Carlo Felice Cillario, Sir Richard Bonynge, composers Benjamin Wallfisch, Quincy Jones, actors Idris Elba, Omid Djalili and film directors Bruce Gowers and Woody Allen. On July 7th, 2007, Jay was involved in Live Earth: Concerts for Climate Change. An event that held concerts in all 7 continents in simultaneous fashion, its venues were the Oriental Pearl Tower (China), Copacabana Beach (Brazil), ArchBasilica of Saint John Lateran (Italy), the To-ji Buddhist Temple (Japan), National Mall in Washington D.C (USA), Coca Cola Dome (South Africa), Sydney Football Stadium (Australia), Wembley Stadium (UK), Hamburg Arena (Germany) and the Rothera Research Station (Antarctica). Jay attended the University of New South Wales, Sydney Film School, Raindance Film School, The Actors Gym and Screenwise. He did courses with the Australian workshop series Theatrelab, led by the likes of Cicely Berry, Robert Benedetti and Tony McNamara. Interested in film casting, Jay did workshops with Australian casting director Maura Fay, UK's casting director Carolyn McLeod and former president and co-founder of the Casting Society of America, Mike Fenton. As an educational researcher, blogger interviewer and Q&A participant, Jay has discussed filmmaking with actors Shobu Kapoor, Baird Wallace, David Schaal, and Asa Butterfield, producers James Simpson, Ted Hope and Christine Vachon, screenwriters Byron Willinger, Clive Bradley and Michael J. Wilson, and directors Conrad Vernon, Debbie Howard and David Michôd. In 2014, he acted in the first international Super Bowl commercial, Doritos' Finger Cleaner, which was personally selected by Marvel Comic writing legend and producer, Stan Lee, to be in the top five finalists. Jay's photography was a part of the Pulse Interim Memorial in Orlando, led by Barbara Poma, commemorating the lives lost in the Orlando tragedy in 2016.