PlayersPlanet.com recently caught up with Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess. He discusses his work with the band, his OrKeystra project, developing iPad apps for keyboards, and more. An excerpt is available below:

PP: At the NAMM trade show in January, attendees were treated to the debut performance of your new keyboard focused group OrKeystra. Can you tell us a little about this group?

Rudess: "OrKeystra is a new ensemble but I'm putting together and premiered at the NAMM  show. I've assembled some amazing young talent to join me in this group. The idea is to have three high-level keyboardists playing together with a great drummer. The group consists of Eren Başbuğ, Marco Parisi and Elijah Wood. These guys are truly unique. I met Eren years ago when I was commissioned to write a concerto for a concert in Venezuela. He was posting YouTube videos of himself conducting an orchestra in Turkey and he was covering the music of dream theater. He was only 19 years old and I really thought it was great! It's a long story, but my wife and I helped him to come to America and go to the Berkeley school of music in Boston. At the same time he slowly but surely got involved with some of the Dream Theater things we were doing. He's in immensely talented keyboard player as well and I knew he would be perfect in the group. 

Marco Parisi is another major talent in the keyboard world. I met him when I was in Germany at Musik Messe. He was demonstrating for Korg as well. I knew from the moment that I met him that this was a very special person. We became instant friends and it became really clear to me that he would be a great member of OrKeystra as well!

Elijah Wood is my drummer. He is actually the youngest member of the group. I think as of this writing he's only 19 years old. He is the son of a dear friend of mine named Mark Wood who is a fantastic electric violinist. Mark and I have known each other for so many years as we went to Juilliard together when we were very young. I think I met Elijah when he was only about two years old. He is an enormous talent and can play all the wacky meters and the crazy music that I throw at him."

Go to this location for the complete interview. Check out OrKeystra's live debut at NAMM 2015 below: