Music Recommendation - Craig Urquhart

Another musician who's music we are currently listening to is composer/pianist Craig Urquhart. Craig not only produces beautiful instrumental piano pieces, but he's also a believer that music is helpful to human beings, which is one of the premises on which music2work2 is built.

According to Craig each composition reflects the healing power of music and nature as well as the emotional journeys of life. His songs are relaxing, soothing, solo piano pieces - have a listen to my current favorite "Venetian Snowfall:" click the player below and you'll be taken to the track page on Last.fm

Listening to this piece, I can envision snowflakes swirling around, some big, some small. As the snow covers trees, grass, roads, rooftops, everything is transformed into a beautiful, pure, glistening, snow-covered picture. Although snow has always been a problem for me – difficulty getting around in the snow – I think it is nature at it's most glorious.

You can visit Craig's website at http://www.craigurquhart.com, where he sells his 9 CDs through CDBaby. Apparently he has a new CD coming out to be released in late February.

Craig Urquhart has a history filled with recognitions and successes - I hope you like his music as much as we do.

Boys Bedtime Music - 8 minutes 8 seconds

First piece of music2work2 from 2001 - Piano lullaby to get small children to sleep.[audio:bosbt2.5.mp3| titles=Boys Bedtime Music|artists=music2work2]

Getting two energetic children calmed down for bedtime is a challenge that most parents would recognize. Like many things that help, we stumbled upon the calming effect by accident;  I had been working on this particular piece and had it playing in the background while we were reading a bedtime story. When the story finished and we were kissing the boys goodnight, we heard a little voice asking us to keep the music on because "...the music helps me sleep".

So we did, and not only did it help them sleep, it also helped them recognize when it was time to sleep. We ended up putting a small CD player in their room and when it came close to bedtime, we would play the music in the background and it would have an instant calming effect. With the volume down low, it actually became quite fun to read a story with the background music; it made it sound like a film score! Sometimes the kids would be asleep by the end of the story, sometimes they'd be still awake, so long as the music continued to play, they wouldn't ask for another story, they'd just drift off listening to it. I ended up making a number of CD's with about 45 minutes of music. If we put them on say 5 minutes before bedtime, the kids were generally asleep before the CD stopped. Of course, when it comes to kids nothing works all the time, but on most nights, it was perfect.

Download: Boys Bedtime Music

Irene - 13 minutes 49 seconds

Piano and dramatic strings, written for Irene

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I love writing music about people; I find it to be one of the most stimulating approaches to composition. People touch me in so many different ways, they create emotions and memories, they are complex and my perception of them unique. Tapping into that part of my brain when I’m playing has always been a rich creative vein.

This track was written as a thank you to my Aunt Irene for looking after us when we were in Paris. My Uncle Dominic had passed away the previous year and it was the first time we had seen her since the funeral. The piece starts off incredibly sadly and yet by the midway has become dramatic and full of life – just like my wonderful Parisian Aunt.

The melody that comes in around 9 ½ minutes is possibly one of my favorite string passes in the entire music2work2 catalog to date.

If you like the track you can share it across your Networks - just click share on the right of the player. Irene is part of The Reader's Playlist.