Local House Concert Showcases Artists

Scott D. Davis and Michele McLaughlin played the third show of their Touring the Ivories coast-to-coast tour last Thursday, July 11. The concert was held at a residence in Grand Terrace and welcomed around 20 people who heard of the concert through word of mouth or online. Many of the guests there had heard Davis and McLaughlin’s music on Pandora, an online music streaming website, and looked online for concerts they could attend in their areas. Both artists are solo piano players and neither has had any classical training. The musicians are self-taught and individually inspired by their own muses. Davis’ piano journey started when he had asked his parents for a guitar for Christmas when he was 16 so he could play the rock music that he enjoyed so much, and instead, he was given a keyboard. Davis remembers asking them why a keyboard and not a guitar and their response was, “Well, this was on sale and they are pretty much the same thing, aren’t they?” Nevertheless, Davis began learning how to play his keyboard and would go on to play in numerous bands before finally working on his own solo piano music. He now integrates his love for heavy rock into his music by doing covers of some of his favorites and most iconic rock songs such as “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses and “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica, and by using the sound and energy of rock music when composing his own works, demonstrated that night when he played his original piece “Soul of the Storm." McLaughlin began her own musical journey a bit younger: at the age of five. She is completely self-taught and even began composing her own music at the age of eight. She describes her work as a musical diary of her life and experiences because so much of her inspiration comes from the experiences she is going through in that moment. During the concert, McLaughlin played songs like “Irish Rain” and “Spiritual Awakening,” which were both songs that were inspired by a place that McLaughlin had traveled to. “Dangerous Obsession” and “Forsaken” were songs that she composed while releasing pent-up frustration on her piano. McLaughlin currently has 14 albums out and her most recent album “Waking the Muse” was inspired by a tour she did last year that shook her out of a period of zero musical stimulation. Her album “Breathing in the Moment” was nominated for “Album of the Year” by Solopiano.com and was featured on iTunes Top 100 New Age Charts in 2012. Guests were able to mingle with each other and the artists during intermission, where food and refreshments were served and hard copies of the artist’s music and the sheet music were available for purchase. Davis and McLaughlin stayed after the show as well to take pictures and sign purchased CDs. Both artists aspire someday to travel to Europe for a tour, although both are happy that they are already able to do what they love for a living. Davis comments on his plans for the future: “My dream used to be to travel and play music fulltime. Now that I have done that, the only thing I could hope for is just to do more of what I am already doing on a larger scale.”