Matthew Labarge - October (2009)

Most people begin their day with the hopes of making the most of each new opportunity improving their lives in some aspect. One solo pianist has made it a priority to better his music abilities through hard work, education, and practice. This dedication to betterment has empowered him to acquire musical abilities heard at a more professional level. Matthew Labarge from Blacksburg Virginia is the composing solo pianist who first started his job career as an engineer, then began to study piano composition full time with composer John Hilliard, shortly releasing his first two albums, First Fall Night & In Small Hours. Even though both projects are something to be proud of, he felt composing was his stronger point and actively began to rebuild and improve his technique of piano playing from the ground up, greatly restructuring his performance foundation before releasing his current album October. Believing this latest solo piano project is his best to date, I do agree with him after listening to all 3 albums, and I do notice improvement in his performance abilities, but certainly wouldn't completely disregard his prior albums at all. I did like the songs Prelude & Dance from the First Fall Night album. October is Matthew's latest release and the first he had total control over, having wrote, played, engineered, and produced the entire project. This latest highlights his re-dedication to self improvement on the piano, and it shows in both the composition and performance aspects in my opinion. This album is polished and sincere, greatly dignified by the abundant classical touches that portray Contemporary Piano in a refined manner by his classic articulation, elevating both the expression and imagination to the overall project, without over emphasizing the classical music enhancements. The song Wedding Waltz has special meaning to Matthew since it was written during the time period when he proposed marriage to his girlfriend, and is already a bit revealing to the rest of us now that we know that. This first piece begins in a mid tempo moment of quiet anticipation that gently responds with an invitingly deep tonal perspective, parlayed in a classical straight forward sense, yet in a provocative way too by the inclusion of major to minor key changes. The rich piano melody is timed equally like a sentence where cords join in unison, adding the context of emotion as if waiting for her answer, which now leaves the rest of us wondering what was the outcome of his marriage proposal. Her reply was YES ! The song Leaves Dancing marks the officiating period when our happy couple exchanged wedding vows, placed rings on one another's fingers, and then became husband and wife. This celebration piece appropriately leaps with excitement starting with an upper register play on notes that are well suited, befitting the theme of colorful leaves falling on an October day while also observing this couple's commitment pledge to one another. Then an interchange in octaves are given during the melody, marking this song and occasion by the leaps and bounds of notes from upper register octaves that step to lower register notes, then revisit again, qualifying both this moving song and this wedding occasion as a beautiful celebration of their holy union together