John Cathal O’Brien – Masterpiece by Yee and O’brien (Spotify)
Masterpiece' is the latest single from singer-songwriter John Cathal O'Brien and composer Jean Marc Yee. Recorded in NYC by Yee & O'Brien
Nagamag:
What are the genres that describe better your music style?
Charley van Veldhoven:
A hybrid between impressionistic and romantic classical music and jazz. Influenced by artist such as Debussy, Hiromi, Chick Corea and Nina Simone.
Nagamag:
Few words about your musical background and career?
Charley van Veldhoven:
When I was around 6 years old I started playing the piano and I almost immediately started composing my own music. I absolutely loved improvising and doing my own thing! I used to enter competitions from the age of 8 till 14 and win several prizes! At the age of 20 I decided mechanical engineering was not quite what I wanted to do. I took two gab years and moved to London. I wrote my first album for solo piano here and started teaching at my own piano music school. Because this showed me I could live my life just doing music I got inspired to truly follow my dreams and become a composer for film and other media. I moved back to the Netherlands and started my course at Music and Technology at the HKU in the Netherlands because I love making music and I love technology! Now I have made music for several games under which the award winning game Reducept that helps people with chronic pain. I also write music for movies from LA/Netherlands and recently won the 100% her competition with Universal Production Music. Next to producing and composing for Media I still just love to improvise and do my own thing on the piano. I am super excited that the first track of my solo piano album is finally out! And there is much more of this coming this year!
Nagamag:
Do you remember your first connection of love to music that was the right impact to be a music artist now?
Charley van Veldhoven:
When I was around 8 years old I always loved listening to classical music CD's when playing with my toys. Then later I started finishing my solo piano compositions when I was living in London. There were many jamsessions I went to and I listened to albums of Nina Simone and Chick Corea. Living there and seeing all the amazing musicians there got me inspired to take action and start writing my album.
Nagamag:
Most artists have a favorite song from a different music genre than the one they are producing music for... Which is yours?
Charley van Veldhoven:
Cashmere Cat "Moo"
Nagamag:
Of Course Nagamag would love to listen also which track from a similar artist you admire?
Charley van Veldhoven:
Hiromi "Old Castle, by the river, in the middle of a forest"
Eli Jonathan – 2004 (Spotify)
2004 is a song about wrestling with the fear of people close to you leaving you behind and forgetting you. The song has some very cool modern textures and some sweet drum programming.
Franco Robert – Unspeakable Emotions (Spotify)
8th track from Argentine composer Franco Robert's debut album "Piano Spells I". It's a very slowly played piano piece featuring a beautiful and melancholic melody which invites to reflection and creates a heartbreaking feeling which cannot be expressed with words.
Charley van Veldhoven – Hideaway (Spotify)
Charley van Veldhoven wrote this track when was living in London for two years before I decided to become a full time composer and musician. It is greatly inspired by Nina Simone and Chick Corea and is a hybrid between classical music and jazz with some modern and romantic influences!
Aline Mayne – Superfreak (Spotify)
Superfreak is an inspirational song about self-acceptance, no matter how weird or different we feel/are. Putting a positive light to the word "freak". We can accept who we are, love ourselves, be loved and celebrate our uniqueness because it's what makes us awesome! The music video features people of all shapes and sizes, looks and vibes, in a beautiful way.
Richard P John – Saudade V (Spotify)
Saudade' is an untranslatable word. It a deep emotional state of nostalgic or deeply melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Saudade was once described as "the love that remains" after someone is gone. Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone or something that should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this absence. It brings sad and happy feelings all together, sadness for missing and happiness for having experienced the feeling.
Kate Vogel – Reasons to Stay (Spotify)
I tried to kill myself but lived. A song about hope. The beauty will outweigh the pain.
Zach Heyde – The Gates of Frostfell (Spotify)
Frostfell was written to depict a story of my own imagination: the tale of a Nordic town cursed for generations by an endless, bitter winter, and a young boy’s prophesied journey through the tundra to lift that curse.
This piece serves as an overture to the album, depicting the present state of the small town of Frostfell: barren, frozen farmlands, its citizens just barely clinging to life that once flourished.
Stephen Weber – Bittersweet (Spotify)
A piano improvisation reflecting conflicting feelings. A reflective and emotive piano improvisation by Stephen Weber.