I've spent most years of my life writing music. Funny... I never wanted to be a musician. Both of my parents were in the symphony back at home in Oradea, Romania. I would spend every Monday evening watching their concerts and I got the chance to see countless Operas, Operettas and traveling symphonies from around the world. What I'm saying is... it was cool and I'm better for the experience, but it wasn't my cup of tea. I always had dreams of becoming an athlete. Even during my 1 year in the ...
I've spent most years of my life writing music. Funny... I never wanted to be a musician. Both of my parents were in the symphony back at home in Oradea, Romania. I would spend every Monday evening watching their concerts and I got the chance to see countless Operas, Operettas and traveling symphonies from around the world. What I'm saying is... it was cool and I'm better for the experience, but it wasn't my cup of tea. I always had dreams of becoming an athlete. Even during my 1 year in the Vienna Boys Choir (as far as I know I was the only foreign member of the Vienna Boys Choir in its existence), I was more focused on soccer then music. I usually ended up dominating the sport I played. I loved to play sports. You get what I'm saying? Soccer, American Football, Water Polo, Hockey... you name it. If it's a team sport, I probably played it. Through out my entire childhood I was both... athlete & musician. I was the kid who went from Soccer practice to piano practice. In my freshmen year of high school I played the national anthem before football games (using my trumpet) in full football gear (minus the helmet). Never wanted to be a musician. Yet... here I am. I credit the Scorpions, Motley Crue, Eddie Van Halen & Tony MacAlpine for getting me back into music. I watched the Scorpions "World Wide Live" video and realized that music doesn't have to be so serious all the time. I loved Rock N' Roll, but to me it was always very simple basic stuff, until I heard Eddie Van Halen. The sound of that guitar cemented it for me. It made me realize that it doesn't all have to be 1, 4 & 5. I credit Tony MacAlpine for getting me interested in Chopin. In high school I decided I wanted to start playing the piano again so, my mother (sick as she was) got a job cleaning at a local families house and in turn they gave us the piano (she worked it off). I took to it like a fish to water. I used to play Gershwin, Chopin, Mozart, Bach, you name it. Then I started writing my own music again. In 1986 my mother was laying on her death bed with breast cancer and the only thing she liked was when I played the piano for her. She liked the classics, but she liked it more when I made up the music in front of her so... I would sit by the piano (sometimes for a few hours) and just make tunes up. She eventually died on October 13, 1986, one week before Senior day/home coming at Taylor Allderdice high school. That was the one day I was really looking forward to. It was our final home game and all the seniors on the football team gave their mother a rose and walked her out to midfield. As I said... it was the one day in the four years I was really looking forward to. That seemed to kill my interest in pursuing football as a career. I ended up at Duquesne University as a Classical Piano performance major/voice minor. Under the stress of college scrutiny I realized that I love to listen to Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Gershwin, etc... but I don't really enjoy the hours and months it takes to perfect playing one of their pieces (when I say months... I'm speaking about Chopin's Etudes and Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata's" 3rd movement... stuff I played in college). The stress of performing the Etudes really used to get to me. I got involved in rock bands and ended up signing a recording contract with one (Big Bad Wolf) and went on to break my back the same night in a falling accident, leaving me paralyzed from the waist down. The wheelchair helped me get out of the music industry (which is all hype and image driven... very little actual talent, especially now-a-days) and eventually led me to scoring film and video projects. I'm not the type of person to sit around and feel sorry for myself. Shit... life is chalk full of lemons. You better get to learn how to make that lemonade and like it or you'll spend a life time of misery. I see what happened to me as a blessing because I'm no longer forced to write the same song 8 - 12 times to sell Cola or Tennis shoes. I get to actually expand my horizons and go into as many different directions as I want.
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