Today I’m introducing you to Australian born composer and pianist Lihla, now basen in Berlin, Germany. Lihla is a classically trained cellist and pianist, and has done lots of work for theater (contemporary circus and dance theatre).

The track Skeleton woman is tasken from the EP Null which was released in the beginning of July 2019.

This EP is a collection is neo-classical pieces that were featured in soundtracks for stage. I realised that I had been composing so much music that was only ever heard within the walls of the theatre. I never recorded any of the live pieces, so when the shows were over, so was the life of the music. This is my way of keeping these stories alive. 

Tell us something about your track Skeleton woman!
I like to create little sonic wombs of sound effect and sound scape for really lush melodies. Like an audio magic realist story. I like to play with intricate shifting layers of harmony. Cello had always been my main voice, but I’ve been finding an nostalgic comfort with my piano voice over the last few years – it actually was my first instrument (all those thirty something years ago!)
The skeleton woman is an inuit tale, retold by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. It’s a tale of healing through compassion – for the self, for others, and for the cyclic nature of life and love. 

Thank you for sharing this with us Lihla!

For more information and updates, check out these links:
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to the Belgian pianist and composer Matthias De Jaeger (could that mean the hunter maybe) from Gent in Belgium. Matthias is 34 years old and have played piano since he was six years old. He hasn’t been composing all that time however, but started about ten years ago.

This song is released as a single, but will also be featured on an upcoming album, planned for the autumn in 2019.

Tell us something about your song Living Dream!
This is a song that I composed already more than 5 years ago. For me it is one of my most emotional songs because first of all it tells a moving story. A story about chasing dreams untill they come true. But it is also an important/emotional song because this song ensured that I finally dared to take the step to come out with my music.

Thank you for sharing this with us Matthias!

For more information and updates, check out any of the following links:
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you tusenfoting, or Pelle Kronhamn. Pelle is the brother of a pretty good friend of mine so when I saw him linking to this on facebook and heard piano coming from my computer speakers, it felt like I had to write a little something about it!

Pelle is a musician living in Malmö. He (and his brother Kalle) is part of the metal band Subfret, but he also makes other kinds of music. I don’t really know what to call the song 36/63, so just have a listen and decide for yourself.

The song 36/63 is featured on the EP tusenfoting I which was released in June of 2019.

Tell us something about the compositional theme of the EP!
I make these songs with a piano and my computer alternating between playing parts and making variations by MIDI. All instruments are virtual and all playing is a combination of human hands and programming in varying degrees. The theme throughout the music is variations on themes, changing metre, subdivision, triplets and stuff like that. Most songs have one or maybe two melodies or themes and just vary on those. And of course a few extra melodies on top now and then.

Tell us something about your track 36/63!
36/63 is built on variations on the initial piano melody. From that I changed the metre so it appeared to accelerate twice, specifically the “last part”. The “36” part is actually a small part of a note reversal of “36”, although not so apparent, the same thing is more obvious if you listen to the two other tracks “IV (v.)” & “IV”, where a note for note reversal leads from the end of one track into the other mirroring each other.

Wow. I would really like to take a look into your head sometime when you’re composing. This doesn’t remind me at all of my own composing sessions! Thank you for sharing the music though!

For more information and updates, please check out any of the following links:
Website / Spotify

So, the day has finally come! The day when I move the presentation of a new release from the news category to the spotted section. Why it makes sense this time is because I made this song together with Rikard Mathisson. So I could actually let someone else write a presentation for the song since it’s both mine and his.

This song came out on the 5th of July and was released by The Sonder House.

So, Rikard; Tell us something about the song Rowan!
An important part of the music is the inspiration you share with other people both in the mind and in the art, and since we create music that touches each other, it was obvious that we should try to create music together – in the style and era of Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds. Rowan is the first track reaching out like this, hopefully there will be plenty!

You can find all my social links all over the place on this site, but if you’re interested in following Rikard and his upcoming project you should check these links out:
Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Homepage / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to Matt Stewart-Evans, a composer from Nottingham, UK currently based in London. Matt is self taught on the piano and together with the Swedish record company 1631 he has gotten over 10 million streams on his first EP Wanderer from 2016.

Today, however, I’m introducing you to his brand new album Solo which contains of seven pieces for the piano.

Tell us something about the album!
The album came together as a collection of solo piano pieces slowly and fairly organically over a period of about 2 years. Up until now, my composing time has been limited to pockets of time in the evenings and weekends alongside a full-time job, so the creative process tends to move quite slowly. However, ‘Retrospect’ came out on the day that I switched to a part-time role to focus on creative endeavours, so this album marks nearly a month into a new creative period for me. No excuses now! I mean, other than money…

Tell us something more about that track Retrospect!
Retrospect was a piece born out of an improvisation that evoked strong nostalgic feelings about being a kid for some reason – it’s not all that often that a piece reminds me of a specific feeling like that. It also resonated with many others when I was ‘road testing’ the pieces, so made sense to me to use as the single. ‘Lulled’ comes in a close second, as it’s one of the first pieces I composed of this collection, and I still love playing it and improvising further with it two years on.

Thank you for sharing this wonderful album with us Matt! And let’s hope you’ll reach 10 million streams on this album as well!

For more information, please check out these links:
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to Australian composer Christopher Dicker based in Melbourne. Like many others, Christopher spend his youth in different bands, but (like many others) he also eventually turned to piano music in 2015. He’s piano composing skills came at the same time as his piano skills, also in 2015. So, what you hear in this song is kind of the result of only four years playing and making music on piano. That’s impressive!

The track Precursor To A Day is taken from the EP Odes To An Early Morning which was released on June the 14th by The Sonder House.

Tell us something about your latest release!
Precursor to A Day is the opening track to an EP titled ‘Odes To An Early Morning’ released  on June 14th; a record themed around the still and quiet time of day between midnight and sunrise. The 4 tracks are actually the remnants of a full-length i never finished, so as to move my focus to the soundtrack for Snake Island (the soft-more novel by well known Australian author Ben Hobson) which will be released on August 5th. I enjoyed these tracks and figured i’d release them instead of letting them just site on my hard drive.

Tell us something about your track Precursor To A Day!
This track itself was an unplanned improvisation from this very time of day, recorded one morning when i was up particularly early. It felt  to me like that space just before the world wakes up and the day really begins.  As I produce my music at home on my piano, sometimes I just push record and play for a while and that is how this happened. You can even hear me sitting down at the piano bench at the beginning of the track – I kinda liked how that sounded so i left it in!

Thank you very much for sharing this song, and this EP with us Christopher!

For more information, please check out any of these following links:
Facebook / Instagram / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to Ema Shah, a singer, actress and director from Kuwait. Well, since this song is talken from a solo piano album, I feel free to call her a pianist and composer as well! Feel free to check out her other music as well by clicking the Spotify link all the way down on this post.

The track First kiss is taken from Ema’s first ever solo piano album called In Love which was released on June the 2nd of 2019.

Tell us something about your track First kiss!
The story of each track in this album is the same story. I was a depressed, because I was looking for pure love and stability in a relationship; I loved someone and I did not tell him that I loved him and he did not share the same feelings. I didn’t tell him because I know it doesn’t matter if he is as a man doesn’t take this action.. it was hard.

This Music is real and I made it from my heart, because I’m in pain when I am silent. I didn’t want to make anything sad or negative or even for anyone to know about this subject. On the contrary, the musical sentences are major and positive to give hope to people even if I did not have that hope and I was in deep sadness. I do not like to see any human being in the world going through this situation because it is very difficult. Love is difficult and passive people are difficult. also I was facing 3 very negative people, in 3 days, every day I was facing very negative person, I went to the massage shop in Kuwait at 2 am and I said to myself: Go to the massage and forget the past and forget the negative people and convert  this psychological pressure to something creative, take advantage of this moment, seize it. I went to massage and I was on my way home at 3 am. in the car I called “Fahad Al Msallami Studio”  and the musician “Mubarak Karam” and we schedule this next day. Within two days we finished the album. I compose in any moment, my head full of melodies.

Thank you Ema for this story, and I do hope you find the love you’re looking for!

For more information, please check out these links:
Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to Steve Luck, a British composer from Newcastle Upon Tyne. Steve has worked as a professional musician for about 30 years (well done, Steve!) and has made music for picture and different kind of production music libraries.

Steve has composed solo piano music since 2013 and has released three EPs since then.

The song Crescent Moon is released as a single and came out late June of 2019.

Tell us something about your track Crescent moon!
This new single was inspired by the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C# minor ‘Quasi una fantasia’ – better known as the Moonlight Sonata. I have always thought that there was something special about the Beethoven piece. It is one of the most popular piano pieces of all time and I have always been fascinated by it. It is one of those pieces in which, the relative simplicity of the notes belies its emotional depth. That principle, how to get the most emotion from as few notes as possible, underpins a lot of the current contemporary classical scene and has intrigued composers for hundreds of years. The performance was recorded in my studio in 36 Lime Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne on my 114 year old Bechstein grand piano using two stereo pairs of microphones – one set under the lid close to the strings and the other set were in  omni mode and placed more towards the middle of the room. These two recordings were then blended together and added to with a little reverb and eq before mastering.  I hope you enjoy listening to the result! 

Thank you Steve for this!

For more information, please check out these following links:
Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to Portuguese composer and producer Élvio Rodrigues originally from the Madeira island, but now located in Lisbon, Portugal. Élvio is a self taught musician and likes to explore soft piano sounds and to experiment while creating music.

The song Sunday Joy is taken from Élvios latest album Sunday mornings are for piano which was release early June of 2019.

Tell us something about the production of this latest album of yours!
At the beginning of 2018, during a 10 week period, I challenged myself to finish composing one piano-based song per week, and play it live on instagram every Sunday morning. Those 10 songs were then re-recorded during 2018 and the result is what you can hear in the ‘Sunday mornings are for piano’ collection. Because of that, the songs are about many disparate things, but what brings them together is the context on which they were created and performed for the first time.

Tell us something about your track Sunday Joy!
Sunday joy was the last song to be completely composed and played live on instagram, during the ‘Sunday mornings are for piano’ sessions. But somehow it seems to be the one that best encompasses the vibe that I was trying to incorporate with the ‘Sunday mornings are for piano’ songs. There’s something light about it, that might not have been achieved in the other songs. At the same time, the second half of the track contrasts with the first half, by sounding a bit more bitter-sweet. The way I see it, it’s just like a Sunday. It starts by being one of the most calm/uplifting days of the week, but as we progress through the day, that feeling starts to dissipate. It’s almost like the first half of the song is ‘Sunday joy!’, while the second is more like ‘Sunday “joy”‘.

Thanks you for sharing this with us Élvio! I love challenges like that!

For more information, please check out these links:
Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to American composer Ryan Whyman from Los Angeles, California. Ryan released his debut album in 2019, and this song is taken from it. The theme of the album is nostalgia, anticipation, and fantasy; which is kind of obvious since the title of the album is Fantasies & Memories.

My influences combine my classical piano background with jazz, world folk music, and film music to create genre-bending neoclassical music. I write music to bring beauty and restoration into the world. 

Tell us something about your track Nocturne!
I prefer allow the listener to reach their own interpretation as to the meaning of the song, so I’d rather not delve into what it means to me. The word “Nocturne,” generally describes a piece of music inspired by, or evocative of, the night. Most of the music I’ve written over the last few years has been relatively complex, written for large ensembles with intricate counterpoint, and complex textures and harmonies. This piece breaks away from all that, with a simple melody, and only two instruments. The recording process was a lot of fun; to achieve the final piano sound we taped paper towels to the strings of an upright piano, giving it a mellow, somewhat percussive sound, and then put 6 mics all around the piano. 

Thank you for the music Ryan!

For more information and updates, check out these links!
Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Website / Spotify