Scenes from Paris

“You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald 

I wanted to start from the beginning. I wanted music that was real, that you could hold in your hands. I wanted to give back in a way that was given to me by the great composers before..

So much of “music” was no longer feeling real anymore. It’s edited and produced to a degree that it loses most human qualities. It’s written in a style by a dozen curated composers to simply be “popular.” It’s become a science more than an art..

There is hardly any intimacy in music anymore. The sounds we hear aren’t even from physical instruments, and the music is rarely ever written down. How can it ever be reproduced ? Isn’t music meant to be shared ? To me, music that can be unplugged isn’t real. I often think to myself, if all the power in the world went out, could this still exist ? If it can be unplugged it just doesn’t feel secure to me. And if it’s not written down in a language that can be translated, how long will it really last ?

Today we type things into a computer on a hard drive that can be wiped out in a second, never to be remembered. The ancient Egyptians carved their words onto stone tablets.. but guess what.. through sand and storm, 2000 years later, those words are still here..

I’ve always sought to follow in the footsteps of the composers before me: Chopin, Schubert, Satie, to name a few. Composers that lives existed because of a pen, paper, and a piano..  hundreds of years later they still flourish more than ever. Every day I am eternally thankful for the music they left behind. After over 200 years Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven continue to touch millions of people every day. If you consider that number through the 200 years + ~200 more still to come, I would estimate that into the billions. Popular music is only relative to the moment. Classical music is timeless. I often ask myself: what are you doing today that not only can reach people in your lifetime, but in lives far beyond yours?

“A lifetime is enough for music, but music is not enough for a lifetime.” Sergei Rachmaninoff 

I honestly feel sad for those who don’t indulge in classical music. It’s such a beautiful world. Such a diverse palette. So often I’ve tried to identify with one specific composer, but I really can’t. I love them all. Just like food my appetite changes. Some days I love Schubert impromptus and Beethoven sonatas, others it’s Chopin and Liszt etudes, maybe Mahler and Brahms Symphonies, Rachmaninoff and Saint-Saens concertos, the list goes on.. I get excited just thinking about it all.. 

I’ve come to consider myself a chef, and I’ve only just opened my restaurant. I’m starting from the beginning and before I can serve you duck a l’orange, I must serve you bread. But hopefully, good bread..

To be honest I think bread is underrated. Bread is one of the most basic and fundamental foods, but also one of my favorite. I eat it everyday.. Bread, some olives and cheese, and red wine, what more does one need ?

This collection of music is my bread. Before I serve anything else we must start at the beginning. We must develop a palette.

These melodies are everything to me and I believe in them with my whole heart. This is just the beginning. Not a single note written was something I did not mean. Every melody was an obsession in its own unique way and consumed me from the day I began to the day I finished. Some pieces have been edited numerous times since 2018, even to the final day I recorded. Maybe they will never be finished, I will continue to sculpt them for the rest of my life. 

“I never wrote a note I did not mean.” - Erik Satie. 

These recordings are not perfect. My piano is not perfect, I am not a perfect performer.. But they are real. There is no editing done in my performances. I set the microphones close to the piano so you can hear my fingers on the piano, the squeak of my pedal, and if you listen closely, even my breathing. I wanted it to feel as if you were listening from my living room, just as I’ve played every day for the last 312 days of this quarantine. 

“Perfection itself is imperfection.” - Vladimir Horowitz 

Many of these tracks were the first take. The first recording always seems the most real to me. There’s an aspect of fear involved. Like a live performance. Your hands sweat, your heart pounds, you’re playing with danger. I will always choose a live performance over a studio recording, that’s when you see an artist truly as they are. Horowitz at Carnegie Hall, or Sinatra at The Sands, (maybe after a drink or two) those are the recordings I love. Because I feel like I’m a part of it. 

“It is not so good to over practice.. You play with that little drop of fresh blood that is necessary.” - Arthur Rubinstein 

I’ve learned a lot since I began this journey.. 25 years in the making. Robert Schumann wrote a collection called Scenes from Childhood, and I’ve modeled it after that. This is my “Scenes from Paris”. A place that I often ran away to to clear my head. For some reason I just think more clearly in Paris, despite the copious amounts of red wine.. 

I ask if you listen that you sit in the dark of the early morning or late at night with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, and listen from beginning to end. This music is intended to paint a picture as the soundtrack to my own life. I truly hope you enjoy..