Andy DiGelsomina | |
|---|---|
 DiGelsomina in 2012 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Springfield, Ohio, US |
| Genres | Rock opera, contemporary classical music, art music, hard rock, Wagnerian rock, heavy metal |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, orchestrator, arranger, producer, sound designer |
| Instrument(s) | Lead guitar, synthesizer |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Website | andydigelsomina |
Andy DiGelsomina is an American composer, lead guitarist, songwriter, orchestrator, arranger, blogger, and producer.
DiGelsomina was born in Springfield, Ohio. His father was a fan of rock music, while his fraternal grandfather preferred traditional art music which made both genres very impactful during the composer's early years.
Though the music of Elton John and Jerry Goldsmith started his lifelong love of music, DiGelsomina first aimed at becoming a fiction writer, shunning high school to earn a college degree at the age of eighteen. It was around that time that he heard the first Black Sabbath album and subsequently changed his major to music. His time in school was cut short when he abandoned the institutionalized education system and instead became a determined autodidact. [1]
His next musical revelation came in the form of the operas of Richard Wagner, which spurred him to study orchestral scores and instruments, greatly expanding his range as a composer. He cites Ludwig van Beethoven's late-era string quartets as having had a profound effect on his writing during that time as well. [2]
DiGelsomina first came to prominence in 2010, upon working with ex-Rainbow vocalist Graham Bonnet for the Lyraka album, Lyraka Volume 1 , an album he wrote, played lead guitar on, and co-produced. [3] Since then he has recorded with many people in the heavy metal genre, including Mark Boals, Al Atkins, and Veronica Freeman, among others.
In recent years DiGelsomina has reduced his involvement in the Rock genre in favor of writing Art music for the Symphony Orchestra, choir, and related instruments, as well as incorporating Aleatoric music, electronic, avant-garde, and Romantic compositional elements. This has resulted in the release of four symphonies, movements of which are featured on his blog. [4] [5]
It was announced May 14, 2020 that DiGelsomina would be returning to the heavy metal genre, working on a solo album entitled "Sic Itur Ad Astra" with ex-Candlemass vocalist Robert Lowe. [6]
Heavy metal critic Martin Popoff referred to DiGelsomina point blank as a "great songwriter", [7] and Metal Rules magazine lauded the compositional style on Lyraka Volume 1 , calling it a "type of cross-fertilized metal that...I've never heard before. Bands mixing different styles and influences is nothing new, but Lyraka have really created something special". [7] DiGelsomina refers to this style as "Serial Vignette Composition". [8]
Lyraka Volume 2
Symphony no. 1
Symphony no. 2
Symphony no. 3
Symphony no. 4
Sic Itur Ad Astra
Yngwie Johan Malmsteen is a Swedish guitarist. He first became known in the 1980s for his neoclassical playing style in heavy metal, and has released 22 studio albums in a career spanning over 40 years. In 2009, Time magazine rated Malmsteen as number 9 among the 11 greatest electric guitar players of all time.
Progressive metal is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified guitar-driven sound of the former with the more experimental, cerebral or "pseudo-classical" compositions of the latter.
The music of Cyprus includes a variety of traditional, Western classical and Western popular genres. Cypriot traditional music is similar to the traditional music of Greece with Turkish and Arab influences, and includes dances like sousta, syrtos, ballos, tatsia, antikristos, arabiye, karotseris, sinalik, chiftetteli, zeimbekiko and the mandra dance.
Wesley "Wes" Williams is a Canadian rapper, record producer, actor, and author. He is known professionally by his stage names Maestro Fresh Wes or Maestro as a musician, and is credited by his birth name as an actor. One of the earliest Canadian rappers to achieve mainstream success, he is credited as the "Godfather of Canadian hip hop". His debut album, Symphony in Effect (1989), was the first certified platinum album by a Black Canadian artist.
Graham Bonnet is an English rock singer. He has recorded and performed as a solo artist and as a member of several hard rock and heavy metal bands including Rainbow, Michael Schenker Group, Alcatrazz, and Impellitteri. He is known for his powerful singing voice but is capable of also singing soft melodies. His singing has been noted as "very loud" by both his contemporaries and himself, and he claims to be a self-taught singer with "no discipline for lessons". Bonnet's visual style, considered uncharacteristic of hard rock musicians, has been described as being a cross between Don Johnson in Miami Vice and James Dean.
André Coelho Matos was a Brazilian singer and musician. He was involved in the heavy metal bands Viper, Angra, Shaman and Symfonia. Since 2006, Matos had been dedicating his time to his solo career. In 2012, he was ranked No. 77 at the list of 100 Greatest Voices of Brazilian Music by Rolling Stone Brasil.
Uli Jon Roth is a German guitarist who became famous for his work with the hard rock band Scorpions and is one of the earliest contributors to the neoclassical metal genre. He is also the founder of Sky Academy and designer of the Sky Guitar. He is the older brother of fellow guitarist and artist Zeno Roth (1956–2018).
Robert Lowe is an American singer.
Beyond the Astral Skies is the third and final album by Electric Sun. It was released in 1985 on EMI.
Mark Robert Boals is an American heavy metal vocalist and occasional bassist, best known for his vocals with Yngwie Malmsteen. He is currently a member of the band Foundry.
Veronica Freeman, also known by her stage name "The V", is an American singer and the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Benedictum. Her most recent album with Benedictum is Obey, released through Frontiers Records in 2013. In 2015, she released her first solo album, Now or Never, which includes two songs written and produced by Stryper frontman, Michael Sweet.
Under A Dark Sky is a progressive rock album by Uli Jon Roth, featuring Mark Boals and Liz Vandall on vocals. It marks the first official release in the long-awaited series of Symphonic Legends, which is a cycle of music written for Roth's all-encompassing Sky of Avalon project.
Don Robertson is an American composer.
Lyraka Volume 1 is the debut studio album from the Wagnerian opera metal project Lyraka. It was released on November 2, 2010.
"Stargazer" is a song by the British-American rock supergroup Rainbow, released as fifth track from the band's second studio album Rising (1976). It is an epic song narrating the story of a powerful wizard whose attempt to fly by constructing a mystical tower to the stars leads to the enslavement of vast numbers of people. "Stargazer" is notable for its musical complexity, with the guitar, lyrics, and drum intro cited as significant examples of the talents of guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, singer Ronnie James Dio, and drummer Cozy Powell.
Phoenix Rising is a Spanish symphonic power metal band from Alcorcón, Madrid, Spain. Their music is strongly influenced by bands like Stratovarius, Rhapsody of Fire, Galneryus, and Sonata Arctica.
Jesús M. Toribio is a keyboardist, pianist and composer. He joined the Spanish power metal band Phoenix Rising in late 2010, and currently resides in Alcorcón, Spain, when not on tour.
Crime and Dissonance is a 2005 compilation album of Italian composer Ennio Morricone's film score work. Intended as a follow-up to two earlier Morricone compilations assembled by Dagored, the album was put together by Alan Bishop and released by Ipecac Recordings. Crime and Dissonance features work ranging from the later 1960s to the early 1980s, and contains scores taken from films of several different genres.
Lyraka is a multimedia art project. There has been one musical CD released from the project, Lyraka Volume 1, with another in the works. Also in the making is a graphic novel collaboration between the project's original creator, Jasmine Aliara, and horror artist Vince Locke. The project features several portraits both commissioned and licensed from fantasy artist Ken Kelly as well as Locke.
Alessandro Del Vecchio is an Italian keyboardist, singer, record producer and songwriter, best known for his collaborations with hard rock and heavy metal artists such as Jørn Lande, Revolution Saints, Hardline, Fergie Frederiksen, Ted Poley, Kelly Keeling and Mat Sinner, and for his work as the in-house producer for Neapolitan record label Frontiers Music SRL from his personal Ivorytears Music Works Studio located just north of Milan.