Holland composer releases debut album featuring renowned UK orchestras

HOLLAND — Recording an hour-length album with some of the finest orchestral musicians in the business was not something Daniel Fisher ever dreamed of when he started tinkering around with his own musical ideas on a $50 piano in college.

Fisher, a retired engineer living north of Holland, has been composing music as a hobby for most of his life but had mostly only shared those compositions with friends and family. The first public performance of his work was at his own wedding.

Today an album of his compositions, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and several soloists and recorded at Abbey Road Studios and Air Studios in London, is available to purchase and stream on major music platforms.

"I had a couple lucky breaks, as people often do," Fisher said. "The first one was back in the 80s, when they invented something called MIDI, so I could hook my keyboards up to my computer and my software and write on a computer. Before that I was doing everything by hand and on a piano, and now I can layer instruments on top of each other, which is really really cool.

Computer software made orchestral composition possible for Fisher, a self-taught composer.

"I started putting six instruments together and then 12 and then 20, and it was pretty exciting," he said.

The pieces in his debut album, "Places Far Away," have been in the making for decades. Fisher traveled millions of miles on work and personal trips to 25 countries, including frequent visits to China, Japan and Vietnam. He drew on his travels to inspire his music.

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Fisher said he often works on his music on planes and in airports, taking advantage of the uninterrupted time to concentrate and capture the fresh memories of the trip.

"I get back to my computer and just start trying to translate that feeling of adventure into music that I can share with other people," Fisher said. "I also think I'm generally a really positive person, and I think that not by design just comes out in my music. It's just uplifting music."

The second "lucky break" that led to "Places Far Away" was a chance meeting with Dutch pianist and composer Ian Mulder, who invited Fisher to the UK to see the recording of one of Mulder's albums and then offered to record one of Fisher's pieces with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2016.

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Over the next six years, the album came together and Fisher formed his own publishing company to release the album, MGFB Music (named for the initials of his grandchildren).

Two of his works were performed by a live orchestra for the first time in 2019 at a concert of the Holland Symphony Orchestra.

Not quite classical in style, Fisher's compositions use classical instrumentation to carry melodies that evoke epic adventure and tender moments — more like the soundtrack to an emotional scene in a movie than a traditional piece of classical music.

Clocking in at 2-3 minutes apiece, the tracks are shorter than many traditional classical works, making for easy listening. Several of the pieces were written for family members, such as album closer "Not Even the Rain," written for Fisher's wife.

Fisher said he hopes his music is accessible to classical music fans and non-classical music fans alike.

Despite being an unknown composer, his album got a boost when it was featured on Spotify's editorial playlist, "Classical New Releases."

Following its June 24 release, "Places Far Away" ranked at No. 3 on Billboard's "Traditional Classical" album chart in the first week of July.

Still, Fisher is aware he is working within a smaller audience pool than popular genres like hip-hop and pop music, for example, and getting his music in front of new people will not be easy.

"It's going to take time, because people don't know me," Fisher said. "There's a lot of music out there for so few people to listen to."

The album is available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and copies of the CD are available on Amazon and on Fisher's website, danielfishermusic.com.

— Contact reporter Carolyn Muyskens at cmuyskens@hollandsentinel.com and follow her on Twitter at @cjmuyskens. 

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Holland composer releases album recorded by top orchestras