Finding the Sound That Makes Us™

An Up The Hill Backwards Production

A documentary series about the people, places, and communities that keep American music alive.

Rochester, New York is where we begin.

The Project

American music is made in more places than the national story remembers.

American music is usually told through famous artists, landmark albums, and cities whose reputations are already established. We are interested in what happens before that recognition, and what continues outside it.

The working musicians.
The churches.
The clubs.
The record stores.
The rehearsal rooms.
The neighborhoods.
The people who keep showing up.

Finding the Sound That Makes Us listens to the places where culture is still being carried forward.

High Falls, Genesee River

Where we begin

Rochester, New York

Rochester, New York is our first city.

Its musical life has been shaped by migration, faith, industry, neighborhood change, blues, gospel, jazz, salsa and Latin music, hip-hop, independent music, classical training, and generations of working musicians.

We are following the people and places carrying that story forward now.

Rochester · 2026

In Production

Development and production are underway in Rochester.

An on-camera interview being filmed in a recording studio control room, with lights, cameras and a boom microphone

Paul Boutte and Peter Bianco in a studio control room beside the mixing console

The Studios at Linden Oaks, Rochester

Beyond Rochester

One city at a time.

Rochester is the beginning of a broader national series.

Each city has its own history, its own musical communities, and its own way of carrying memory forward.

The project is designed to travel without reducing any place to a single genre, scene, or sound.

Team

Who is making it

Carter Mezzio and Quinn Vankerkhove of Real3D Media with Paul Boutte and Peter Bianco in a studio control room — Carter Mezzio and Quinn Vankerkhove of Real3D Media with Paul Boutte and Peter Bianco at The Studios at Linden Oaks

Co-Creator / Executive Producer
Peter Bianco

A medtech professional who has spent his career at the cutting edge of medical technology, bringing new products to market. Music came first, and it is still how he gets to know a place.
Rochester Music Director
Paul Boutte

Keyboardist, songwriter, producer and longtime Hammond organist, with four decades across Rochester's gospel, R&B and jazz communities.
Advisor, Artists & Repertoire
Alayna Alderman

Former vice president, Record Archive. A founding member of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores and a co-founder of Record Store Day. Inductee and board member, Rochester Music Hall of Fame.
Co-Creator
Blair Wisner

Works from a simple conviction: that music is one of the clearest ways to understand a place.
Production Partner
Real3D Media

The Rochester production company establishing the look and feel of the series.