I was born in Boston, MA, and since early childhood, I have been interested in music. Excellent music knowledge and tastes of my parents — in particular, my father — allowed me to enjoy the finest music from a very young age. As an adolescent, I showed zeal for music and began to surround myself with people who shared my passion. Now, I wish to share it with you through this blog.
My Childhood Closely Related to Music
I inherited my love for music. I was lucky to be born into a family of musicians, albeit not professional ones. My father, Gary Connolly, is a great jazz pianist, who regularly played on weekends in a small restaurant near our house. My mother, Margaret, has a classical music education. She was able to cultivate my love for classical music and opera. This helped me understand that all modern music somehow originates from the works of Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Mozart, Vivaldi, Handel, and so on.
But my father’s love for the music of the 70s still inspired me more. Only at hearing the voices of Paul and John, I could go crazy. And the velvet voices of Marvin Gay, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin showed me what kind of male voice you can fall in love with.
My Studying of Music
Very quickly I realized that I wanted to get a music education like my mother did. However, classical education did not appeal to me much. I wanted to learn how to play the piano and sing.
Living in Boston, the choice of educational institution was obvious — Berklee College of Music. This is the world’s largest music college that has more than 5.5 thousand students, and in 2010, I was lucky to become one of them. Having successfully completed my education in 2015, I improved my piano and vocal skills and even tried to start my own band.
Attempts to Form a Band
I first attempted to start my own band back in school. Inspired by the success stories of the greatest bands of the 70s, I placed an ad in the school newspaper. I mentioned that I could play the piano and was looking for a drummer, guitarist, and vocalist to form The Vampires & Bad Sis band. This initiative didn’t bring much success. Several meetings with potential participants were nothing but just meetings.
The 2nd attempt was made when I was a sophomore at Berklee. There, I was surrounded by musicians and there was no problem finding someone. However, with such a large number of musicians and their own takes on music, it turned out to be even more difficult to form a band. Therefore, it was only after graduation that I finally managed to become part of a small band. But this time they invited me. Unfortunately, after a year of playing cover songs in pubs and unsuccessful attempts to record our own material, we went separate ways.