Rachel LaFond – New Album – Encounters of the Beautiful Kind
Come along on a powerful musical journey inspired by Rachel LaFond’s experience, of being a stranger in a new country. New Zealand to be precise where she now calls home.
This beautiful solo Piano Album was recorded in high resolution audio at her home and mastered by the golden ears of Mike Bloemendahl.
The music explores universal human experiences: feelings of loneliness, worries about not being good enough, and the evolution we undergo as existing friendships change or fade while new connections spring to life.
This journey culminates in the realisation that as we bear each other up and connect with one another, we make the world a more beautiful place for all of us.
About Rachel LaFond:
Rachel LaFond is an American composer and pianist who has been steeped in musicality her entire life. Her appreciation of the piano began when she was a toddler as her mother (a piano teacher) played with a young Rachel on her lap. She began formal lessons at age five, and by the time Rachel was eleven, she began teaching lessons herself. She lived in Vienna and studied piano performance there as a teenager, then returned home to major in piano at the University of Washington. After university, she continued to teach and perform professionally, but for years Rachel didn’t realise she had a talent for writing music hidden inside herself until David.
David she had met just weeks ago. Rachel couldn’t stop thinking about him on one rainy autumn afternoon, everything changed. Gazing out the window of her teaching studio, Distraction transformed into inspiration, and by the end of that evening she had finished her first original piece, Loving in the Rain. This first piece stood alone for a while as Rachel got swept up in life’s adventures: Rachel and David got married, quit their jobs, and embarked on a year of long-term travel around the world.
Rachel’s music is inspired by, and engages with, the full depth of human experience. Whether she’s capturing the heady wooziness of falling in love or responding to the chest-cracking pain of Barcelonans who suffered in the terror attack of summer 2017, her pieces are unflinching and compel the listener to lean into the feeling of the song for just a moment more. Rachel’s drive to bring beauty, light, and kindness to dark places through her music lends a striking sense of purpose to her creative work. And she’s just getting started.
Encounters of the Beautiful Kind, Track Listing;
1. Luminous; 5:30
2. Your Beauty Calls Me; 5:00
3. Heart Full Of Memories; 4:24
4. Tears For Catalunya; 4:31
5. You Will Conquer This Shadow; 4:32
6. Love’s Labour’s Never Lost; 5:08
7. The Questions Your Heart Asks; 4:59
8. Don’t Cry, Calvin; 2:46
9. Unrestrained Joy; 3:40
10. Shout To The Sun; 3:27
11. A Knight’s Journey; 3:22
Encounters of the Beautiful Kind Reviews:
Mainly Piano review by Kathy Parsons:
“Encounters of the Beautiful Kind begins with “Luminous,” a piece that starts out in a quietly reflective mood and gradually builds in intensity and passion, peaking and then becoming more subdued to the end – a great opener!”
https://mainlypiano.com/reviews/rachel-lafond-encounters-of-the-beautiful-kind
Contemporary Fusion Reviews By Dick Metcalf:
“Rachel’s expressive and bold approach to the keyboard wins her high marks from me again… songs like the opener, “Luminous“, will raise your spirit to new heights.”
All recorded in Auckland, New Zealand in Rachel’s home.
Mastering by Mike Bloemendahl
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