 | Brian Laeser (1962 - ) CanadaThe media celebrated me as a musical child prodigy in the late 1960s & early '70s.
Yet my abilities are no more "supernatural" than any other musician's. At age 4, I saw my father play the piano, and associated the pitches I heard with the layout of the keyboard & the position of the black-and-white dots on his sheet music.
My mother sought to relive her failed ballet career vicariously by hardwiring me, from age 5½, into a mere stage performer; while creating my own music - an ability she's never had - mattered nothing to her, save as an alibi to attain her said narcissistic end.
Here is not the place to log her years of abuse to achieve that end. But 30+ lucrative years in the cabinetmaking industry was a convenient alibi for me to avoid pursuing music at all, save for 18 years (1986-2004) of after-hours amateur & semiprofessional engagements which - although far less than the celebrity status she sought - were enough for her to invoke the mantle of motherhood to steal the credit, as I'd feared she would.
But when I turned 56 - due to marry in five weeks - I knew I had to let go of that fear. I was established in the secular world. All that I had was paid for. I had no excuse to not unwrap the talent I'd hidden in a napkin, & to make music again.
And above all, my dreams of one day becoming a film-scorer remained intact.
So - in a process of learning to orchestrate all over again - I wrote "The Little White Chapel" (referring to the historic site in Chilliwack BC in which my wife & I married Oct 14, 2018). I was spurred by hearing what Juli had chosen as her processional - a contemporary arrangement which similarly transitioned from the key of E-flat to the key of G, of J.S.Bach's BWV140 "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" - and thinking as I had so often before, "I can write something better than that!"
Despite hearing what I wrote, Juli stuck with the Bach arrangement she had set her heart on as a girl. So I went back to the drawing board & reëvaluated the LWC as a "film-score" to a composite of our wedding photos. I am still writing wedding music which I know will be in demand when the current CoViD19 pandemic abates, & when loving couples it has prevented from doing so can finally marry.
If you & your significant other are one of those loving couples, please contact me.
- BL
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