Danny Rayel

Composer, Multi-instrumentalist and Pianist

Cyprus

Author

About

Music for me is a way of expressing feelings, emotions and life experiences. It can enhance and extract memories from the past, happy or sad, and bring them again to my mind. Rather than what I feel about music, music makes me feel. From a very young age I was introduced to music and since then I am inspired, connected, moved and provoked by it. It reflects something profound about who I am and my experience with the world. Music is necessary in life and for most people it can be an incredibly effective way and weapon to face daily circumstances, Whether it be an end of a relationship, loneliness, sadness or confusion, Music always helps.

I am independent pianist and music composer who mainly writes instrumental music for films,TV, theatre, commercials, video games and many other media. Currently, My main genres of interest are emotional, epic, ambient, dark and fantasy music as well as Electronic Dance Music (EDM). My musical background combines sounds from the Baroque, the Classical and the Romantic era together with more specialised sounds relating to Celtic, Folk, Medieval and Gothic. At the same time I am a competent user of modern music audio software and motion graphics applications for creating visual effects to my projects.

Videos

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Interview

What does music mean to you personally?

Music for me is a way of expressing feelings, emotions and life experiences. It can enhance and extract memories from the past, happy or sad, and bring them again to my mind. Rather than what I feel about music, music makes me feel. From a very young age I was introduced to music and since then I am inspired, connected, moved and provoked by it. It reflects something profound about who I am and my experience with the world. Music is necessary in life and for most people it can be an incredibly effective way and weapon to face daily circumstances, Whether it be an end of a relationship, loneliness, sadness or confusion, Music always helps.

Do you agree that music is all about fantasy?

Yes, I believe that inspiration can come and usually does from fantasy tales, stories and movies.

If you were not a professional musician, what would you have been?

I am very thankful for having music in my life and especially for being able to compose and share with the whole world my lifetime moments through music. A very tough decision, But if I had to follow something else in my life rather than being a professional musician, DJ, pianist and composer, that would be a movie director, visual effects editor or a veterinary.

The classical music audience is getting old, are you worried about your future?

At some point yes this makes me worry. If us, upcoming classical or contemporary classical music composers keep losing audience from our generation who isn’t so much into this kind of genre, then this will result to have nowhere to sell or to promote our music and our favourite music we compose will die slowly slowly. I think if we, all us who love classical music follow some methods we can keep this genre alive and keep people listening to it. Some examples can be, introduce classical music in the early school period, organise various events featuring classical performers and composers and also convince new generations the importance this music can give to them, being as part of the audience, educationally or by performing it.

When I say that classical music is searching for new ways or that the classical music is getting a new face, what would come to your mind?

This is a very interesting question, What comes to my mind with this term,”New Face” is the more contemporary style of music that has really evolved into the scene in the late 1990’s. Some very beautiful classical based pieces have been composed from artists like Ludovico Einaudi, The Piano Guys, Yiruma and Yann Tiersen. This style of music is what I call contemporary classical. Smooth and exhilarating melodies, simpler from classical music but have their own unique sound to them and give a special emotion and feeling to the listener.

Do you think that the classical musician today needs to be more creative? What’s the role of creativity in the musical process for you?

Very good question. If you search and study classical music in depth you will come across several rules that you need to follow in order to complete your task and to be considered “correct”. But if you study modern and contemporary music some rules and boundaries have been slowly slowly ignored or broken by composers and the process is more free and creative where as in classical music these rules were very strict and necessary. Jazz and modern music is more free and open for the performers ideas where as classical music is performing exactly what is given to you. In a few words, as a performer, with modern music you are expressing your own feelings, with classical music your target is to express what the composer felt the period he was composing the piece.

Do you think we musicians can do something to attract young generation into the classical music concerts? How will you proceed?

It’s a fact that nowadays, people, especially young aged, Are not so close to classical music, and prefer more uplifting dance music where they can dance and have a nice time with their friends or close ones. I think this is a matter of taste, some people enjoy only one genre of music, some people a different one and some others are more open and can listen to various genres. Organising events for classical music, making seminars, school teachers teaching more in depth material about classical music and music in general can bring young generation closer to classical music.

Tell us about your creative process. Do you have your favourite piece (written by you) How did you start working on it?

This is a very interesting question. From all my musical pieces I have composed until now I can say that my most successful work is “ I Miss You“ (Find attached a link to the piece below). “I Miss You” is an ambient, emotional, uplifting, evocative orchestral piece which has been composed in an 8 hour non-stop composing. Like all my other pieces, all the inspiration derives from my lifetime experiences, reading books, watching fantasy pictures, movies and world culture. Each piece and title has a very specific message to deliver to the listener and a story behind it. Music is the most powerful way to translate all thoughts, memories and experiences.

We, Moving Classics TV, love the combination of classical music with different disciplines: music and painting, music and cinematography, music and digital art, music and poetry. What do you think about these combinations?

Having a combination of painting, cinematography, digital art and poetry can deliver a much more impact to the product or media than having only one of these activities by itself. For example, if you watch an epic blockbuster Hollywood movie trailer without any music to its background wouldn’t have the same emotion and impact as if it was accompanied with music, almost all media nowadays need and require music, especially if those media are motion picture advertising products.

Can you give some advice for young people who want to discover classical music for themselves?

The best way to start discovering classical music is by listening to various composers of that specific era, names like Beethoven, Bach and Mozart or if you like more contemporary music you can approach the romantic era and listen to Chopin, Liszt and Robert Schumann.

What projects are coming up? Do you experiment in your projects?

There are a lot and very interesting upcoming projects for the year 2017, Some of them are 2 upcoming albums, consisting of at least 10 tracks each, 2 collaborations with other artists and also some audio visual synchronisation projects that I am very happy to be part of. Please visit my YouTube and/or Facebook page to keep up to date with all my upcoming work.