GREG KURSTIN Blazing his own trail from jazz scholar to pop hit-maker By Michael Gallant He’s produced a bevy of wildly successful artists including Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Ke$ha, Tegan and Sara, James Blunt, Dido and the Shins. But Greg Kurstin came to his hit-making career through an unconventional route—as a student of jazz piano. “I loved arranging songs and finding different voicings for chords,” says Kurstin, who studied at New York’s... 

DIDO A soulful synth-pop hit-maker turns up the electronic heat Dido took her time making her latest album—five years, in fact. But the deliberate pace allowed her to develop a more ambitious sound for her fourth record, Girl Who Got Away. Although Dido has always favored acoustic backbones surrounded by delicate synths, Girl reflects a bold expansion into electronic production. Since she first made waves with her 1999 debut No Angel, the 41-year-old...