“Cirque Dreams” music by Conrad Askland and David Piché. © 2017.
We recorded this song in Prague, Czech Republic in 2017 while performing music for the world tour of Varekai by Cirque du Soleil. David was violinist in Varekai and I was the Bandleader and Keyboardist.
Tribute to Abraham Lincoln – the Greatest U.S. President. Background music is Piano Nocturne #14 “Aqua” by Conrad Askland.
It was a very moving experience to work on this video. In the past month I have been creating some videos about historical characters and actual historical figures. This was one of my favorites, to be able to spend time alone (virtually at least) with the great Abraham Lincoln. I am always moved by his quote that encourages us to follow “the better angels of our nature.” To me it is a similar hopeful thought akin to the early U.S. settlers who dreamed of “a city upon a hill.” We fall short. We always do. But we can strive and we can be encouraged to be the better side of who we are as individuals, as a nation and as a global community.
Post-COVID I’ve decided to release more of my music library online and that includes over 260 rap beats and instrumentals that I produced for Rap Track back in 1999-2004. The new YouTube channel for some of these rap instrumentals is currently called Rap Dogs Rap Beats.
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“Search For Me” – Words and Music by Gailyn Addis and Conrad Askland.
“Search For Me” was a song collaboration with Gailyn Addis. We wrote the words and music together, recorded the song and it was released through Orchard Music on the 1999 Gailyn Addis self-titled debut album. Gailyn was one of my all-time favorite vocal artists to record with and this is one of my favorite songs that we wrote together in preparation for her 1999 album release.
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New video I created by animating the faces of the most famous 100 Classical music composers. I felt a very strange connection with each composer as I saw their faces come alive. There were several on this list that I was not familiar with so I also spent a lot of time on Wikipedia learning more about many of them. I hope others have the same experience where, after seeing these classical composers come to life, they cannot help but learn more about each composer’s life and music.
I have several favorite animations in this group. My top favorites are #15 Franz Liszt, #19 Antonio Vivaldi, #22 Dmitri Shostakovich, #27 Claudio Monteverdi and my top favorite composer face animation of the whole group is #45 Christoph Willibald Gluck.
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“Roberto’s Cha Cha” Music by Conrad Askland (ASCAP). © 2016.
I wrote “Roberto’s Cha Cha” back when I was musical director and pianist for “Burn the Floor”, a modern Broadway Ballroom Dance show. It’s a straight ahead Cha Cha beat with classical nylon guitar, piano and percussion.
“If You Were Ever To Go” | Words and Music by Conrad Askland. Vocals by Leisha Skinner.
I’ve had a surprising spike of interest in this song today on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/ConradAskland. “If You Were Ever to Go” is a retro jazz standard-type ballad love song for female vocals, piano and strings with a Nelson Riddle orchestra vibe.
I actually wrote this song back in 2016 while taking the class “Music for Film and TV” with Berklee College of Music. It was an assignment to write a song that could be used as background music while two people danced and talked in a lounge with a live band playing in the background. This class focused on writing stylistic music that could be used by music supervisors for placement in tv shows and web series.
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Frankenstein Theme music by Conrad Askland (ASCAP). © 2016.
Shortly after writing this piece, I was talking with a friend about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Novel. I pulled up the piece to listen to and it struck me as a good fit for the story of Frankenstein.
Continue reading “Theme from Frankenstein – Orchestral Music”
Words and Music by Conrad Askland (ASCAP). “The Winding Stream” © 1997 Conrad Askland.
This was really fun working on a Final Cut video for this song, The Winding Stream. I wrote this back in 1997 for an artist who recorded it on the Road Records CD release “New Faces Volume Two”.
Christmas Gloria © 2007 Conrad Askland. Christmas Gloria in the Baroque style for SATB Chorus, SAT Trio Soloists, Flue, Oboe, Bb Clarinet, Trumpet, Horn, Tuba, Harpsichord and Percussion. Composed by Conrad Askland for the 2007 Christmas Eve service at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church.
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Continue reading “Christmas Gloria – New Baroque Style Music for Chorus and Chamber Ensemble”