Today I’m introducing you to composer Ville Laaksonen from Helsinki, Finland. Ville started playing the piano at the age of five, and soon after started to work on his own compositions. Ville has done a little bit of everything when it comes to music:

I have written and produced songs and albums for others, performed in musicals, sang for millions of people on TV. 

The track Desolate is taken from the album Spaces around times which was released late October of 2019.

Tell us something about your track Desolate!
Desolate is one of my favourites from my album. It was inspired by an end of a friendship and the feeling of loneliness. Somehow it brings an open space to my mind, a desert or a calm ocean. Something that can be both frightening and soothing at the same time. There is also a certain meditative quality in the piece. When I play it’s about listening to the end of notes and the reverberation of strings and feeling when to play the next phrase. 

Thank you for sharing your music with us Ville!

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

Today I’m introducing you to composer, piano player, guitarist and saxophonist Jase Moran from Colombia. Jase started playing music when he was about four years old and has continued to play and compose since then.

The song From another dream was released as a two track single, late October of 2019.

Tell us something about your track From another dream!
I live in a town in the central part of Colombia where it’s extremely sunny all the time. Curiously, it has been quite cold lately, it is raining a lot, which is amazing! Rain and solitude have inspired me to create this and many pieces that I’ll be sharing with you soon.

Thank you for sharing this song with us!

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

Today I’m introducing you to Rob McAllisters new song Equanimity with his project Music Within. I have, of course, written about Rob and his music before, which you can find here! And there will also be a Behind the piano post about Music Within if you’re reading this close to when it was posted.

Long story short; Rob is a Canadian composer who currently lives in Toronto. He started playing the piano when he was about four years old, and started making music about eight years ago.

The song Equanimity is taken from the latest album by Music Within, which was released only two days ago (Friday the 8th of November). The album holds the same title as this tune.

Tell us something about your song Equanimity!
The string part that you hear in this track is a combination of violin played by my friend Drew Jurecka, and my electric guitar played with a violin bow! I had already been experimenting with the sound for another track (a collaboration with SØLYS called Aerial Dreams) and was enjoying the result it produced. I fed the guitar through my amp with a reverb pedal on it and bowed the part. Fun times!

Thank you very much for this Rob!

For more information, please click on the following links:
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to American composer and pianist Zir Bijou. I usually wants to write the introduction to the artist myself, but this introduction by Zir was a story in itself, so I didn’t want to mess it up.

I’m from Brooklyn and my diet pretty much consists of pizza . They say the pizza is so good here because of the water. 

My grandmother pretty much raised me because my parents fought often and one would leave. She had a rickety old piano she taught me to play on. Playing the piano was the only time I didn’t get swallowed by the feelings of abandonment. I got a break from my persistent thoughts of bitterness and resentment. In return, I would feel the warmth of being grateful to my grandmother who loved me. I saw such pity in her eyes when she looked at me. 

The piano, in a sense, is my pharmacy. Drug of choice. I don’t desire to be numb. I yearn to feel. 

The song Deep Amber Foliage is taken from the EP Solo Pianist which came out in October 2019.

Tell us something about your track Deep Amber Foliage!
I chose this song to promote first because on a drive home I was listening to it. At one point I forgot I was driving. That pure blue sky and the smell of fall in the air permeated my senses. The tree leaves had begun to yellow. Families were choosing pumpkins together and picking apples at an orchard. Optimism, love, and joy inspired my heart to swell. I literally felt like the Grinch when his heart was getting bigger. I laughed to myself as I imagined myself green and hairy with gnarly eyebrows who happy people avoided.

The song was the perfect soundtrack to my life at that moment. Then it hit me, winter is coming. Totally got bummed then changed the song to “Crystal Clear” from the EP. Heart got a little smaller in that moment.

Thank you very much for this Zir! Looking forward to hear more from you in the future!

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

Today I’m introducing you to Borrtex, a composer and piano player from Czeck republic. Borrtex have been playing the piano since the age of 6, but never really appreciated going to music school. Two years ago he did however fall in love with the instrument and eventually started composing.

The song thōughts is taken from the album with the same name, which was released on November 1st of 2019.

Tell us something about the song thōughts!
Funny fact is, that I composed over 30 songs for this particular album, but somehow, the quality of the sound was getting better with each new song, so eventually I started deleting the first ones, and making more of the new ones that sounded just so much better! At the end, I selected only 10 songs that I felt were good enough for the album. The song titled thōughts represents my creative process. For me, thoughts are just melodic ideas that I have in my head while I’m thinking about something. And once it starts making noise in my mind, I need to make it visible. So, sitting behind the piano and just kind of ‘transcribing’ my thoughts into music is the main point for the title of the song. …

Thank you very much for this song! (And the album is also great by the way).

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

Today I’m introducing you to Danish composer and piano player Jacob Trautner. Jacob has a long history of music; which started by him taking piano lessons at the age of six. He later went on to study music at The Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, which led to playing in bands, symphony orchestras and so on.

Personal insecurities and a calendar that was quite packed, caused me to lose the desire to play over the years. In 2013 I hit rock bottom, and everything felt grey and indifferent. I started focus- ing more on my own compositions, went into therapy, and initiated a slow process to regain my motivation, enjoyment and vitality both for life and music. My first album “Melancholy” reflects that journey.

The Mermaid is released as a single but will also be featured on the album Melancholy on December 13.

Tell us something about your track The Mermaid!
I’ve always had this idea that someday everything’s gonna be perfect, that eventually, I will be radically fulfilled. This piece is my attempt to describe this longing, but also the resistance to the present moment. The mermaid becomes a distant ideal, something you’ll never reach, but it’s very alluring and challenging to resist.

Thank you for sharing with us Jacob!

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

Today I’m introducing you to Carl Jürgen Emert, or Piano Melancolía; a German composer and piano player from Cologne. Carl has studied music about 25 years ago and now

The track Driving in silence is the first single from the upcoming album Talking Canvas (November, 2019).

Tell us something about your track Driving in silence!
For “Diving in Silence” I used  the software “Noire” from native instruments to get a sound which makes the felt and the mechanics from the piano hearable in the background. I had the idea of raindrops dripping against a window. A warm and peaceful impression, which helps me to create the combination of a simple harmonic structure and a beautiful melody.

Thank your for sharing your music with us!

For more information, please check out any of the following links. Or all of them!
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to the latest release by ABBOTT. He has collaborated on the track with the people mentioned above. ABBOTT himself comes from Hamburg in Germany, and I have written about his music before, which can be found here.

ABBOTT works as a composer, and makes music for himself on his free time.

The track The Encounter is released as a single.

Tell us something about your latest track The Encounter!
This song was a collaboration with the amazing Luna Morgenstern. We met studying music in the Netherlands. She was in my year and already an amazing singer-songwriter. In the winter of 2017 she was interning in Hamburg at the company where I was working and in our free time we would just Jamm together and try things out. I remember giving her this chords scheme. She was just trying things when all of the sudden this beautiful strong vocal melody came out. We both immediately had this ’this is it’! Moment. Together we created the harmonizations and she improvised all other vocal melodies. It was amazing, we had the whole structure in just one night. This was in 2017! In the course of the years this song completely underwent a journey in the form of the sound world and the arrangement. But just this year I finalized it and send it to Luna, who luckily, loved it. And that’s the story of how the Encounter was created.And as cherry on the pie the song got featured in a wonderful short film from Marko Roth!

Thanks for sharing your music with us once again ABBOTT!

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

Today I’m introducing you to pianist and composer Gunnarsson, who doesn’t appear to live anywhere. Or everywhere depending on how you look at it!

I live wherever my music leads me to… Basically I´d consider myself European and I love to explore foreign Countries, especially northern abandoned an void landscapes, such as Iceland, Norway, Scotland and so on.

Gunnarsson started playing music when he was about 6 years old, and his first instrument of his choice was accordion. He later switched to acoustic guitar when he realized that he probably would have more success with the girls by playing the guitar than the accordion.

The song Melancholia is part of by Gunnarssons EP Emotions which was released mid October of 2019.

Tell us something about your track Melancholia!
The composing of the song was a result of being in a very blue and dismal mood. Italo Calvino once said that melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness, and I hope you can hear that glimpse of light in the song. Therefore this particular Song was a bit of therapy to me.

Other Songs have often the approach of storytelling, for example the Song „Rise“ of my EP „Voyage“ is all about a person (me?) sitting in a hut nearby a icelandic glacier on a detuned Piano, translating his or her thoughts to the piano… After a while he or she decides to step out of the hut and climb the snow-covered mountain nearby. This takes a while and finally, on top of the peak, a certain feeling of freedom and comfort surrounds him or her…

Thank you for sharing this with us!

For more information, please check out these websites:
Instagram / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to the latest track by Merrill Crissey which is called Sunrise on a New World. I have introduced you to both Merrill and his music before, which you can find here.

Merrill is a composer and a pianist from Orlando, Florida in America. If you would like to know more, just click the link above or the links below!

The track Sunrise on a New World is released as a single, but will also be featured on the upcoming EP Japonica.

This album is all about the seven years I lived in Japan and the country itself. The EP releases in January of 2020 with one more single coming before that in November. 

Tell us something about your track Sunrise on a New World!
Sunrise on a New World is about the feelings I had when I first arrived in Japan. That time of my life was really exciting and yet somewhat lonely. I was suddenly far away from everything I had ever known and so there is a bit of a melancholic melody mixed with a contrasting sense of excitement. That first year in Japan was really exciting because every day was like a new adventure.

Thanks again Merrill for sharing your music with us!

Please check out these links for more information about Merrill!
Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Website / Spotify