Conrad
Askland
Conrad
Askland is a music producer and keyboardist. His educational and
live performance experience covers an extremely wide range of styles
and formats.
His formal
music studies include Pacific Lutheran University (Composition and
Voice), the University of Miami (Music Law), the Cornish Institute,
the Seattle Early Music Guild and UCLA School of Film Scoring.
Conrad has
extensive experience in live performance as a pianist for Knott's
Berry Farm, 4 years as touring keyboardist with Grammy Winner
Freddy
Fender of the Texas Tornados, vocalist with the Seattle
Opera, touring keyboardist for Roy Rogers Jr., performances
at the House of Blues and Prince Hotels (Tokyo), the Grand 'Ol Opry
and as a keyboardist with various Southern California and Las Vegas
show groups. He has also toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia
and Japan and the United States. Conrad has also performed in England,
France, Denmark, Wales, Holland, South Korea, Tokyo, Okinawa and
Hiroshima.
As a musical
director and/or conductor he has worked full time with such diverse
groups as San Bernardino Summer Theater Festival, National Educator's
Conference and Hollywood
Superstars. He has over 2,000 performances to his credit and
also works as a freelance musical director.
In addition
to scoring and composing for the albums he produces at Road
Records he has composed and arranged for corporate entities
including GTE
and Contel, World Library Publications and United Airlines.
He currently composes ongoing for nearly two dozen corporate clients
at Road Records as well as producing commercial artist albums.
Originally from the
Seattle suburb of Bellevue, WA, this Los Angeles area composer and
arranger lives in the high desert of Southern California in Victorville.
Askland works as pianist
and keyboardist for a variety of shows and his strongest styles
are Stride Piano, Honkey Tonk, Classical, New Age, Country "Floyd
Cramer" style, Southern Gospel and Big Band Swing and has often
been compared to fellow piano players Harry Connick Jr., the Nashville
country piano players of Little Feat and New Age artist Yanni.
Conrad engineers most
of the projects at the studio and has also engineered many of the
Road Records recording artists. His specialty is the wealth of theory
and application knowledge he can apply to projects from classical
orchestration to modern dance and techno. Most people would find
him to be a strong believer in free speech for the arts and extremely
passionate about his work.
Conrad is
also very active in field
recording and audio research. He currently composes and produces
music for clients worldwide and is always creating new audio products
for distribution.
Background
- Formative Studies
Conrad Askland comes from a very strict and musical Norwegian family.
His grandmother a touring jazz pianist in the 1930's, his grandfather
a touring jazz sax player, and his father an amateur opera singer.
As a child he was
surrounded by strictly classical and Broadway music, not listening
to pop music until in his teens. He started school late for health
reasons, had difficulty relating to peers because of the age difference
and quickly immersed himself in scholastic studies at an early age.
His interest in music was very apparent.
At age 8 he enrolled
in the Northwest Boys Choir, an extremely strict regime at the time
focusing on early music in Latin and Baroque/Classical music, very
similiar to the Vienna Boys Choir. This was the beginning of his
intense music studies. The group traveled throughout Europe performing
at major cathedrals and regularly performed with the Seattle Symphony
and other classical music groups. This led to inclusion as a regular
vocalist with the Seattle Opera chorus and eventually a lead role
with the Seattle Opera. Performing in a boys' choir was not generally
accepted by his peers and he delved further into full time music
studies.
At age 9 Conrad began
piano studies with the church organist. He was passed on to a concert
pianist instructor at age 12 and continued to take from various
teachers through college. At this time he was also beginning to
reduce orchestral scores on the piano and learning opera scores
to accompany himself for vocal practice.
At age 10 he began
French Horn which he studied until college and was enrolled regularly
in the Honors Youth Orchestra and High School Orchestra. He took
regular lessons from the 1st chair french horn of the Seattle Symphony,
and was exposed to an incredible amount of orchestral music through
the instrument. In college he was limited to the number of instruments
he could enroll in and decided to give up french horn.
At age 12 he began
studying bass guitar, playing in the jr. high and high school jazz
bands. Although not an incredible player, it gave him another perspective
on music theory, jazz voicings and probably accounts for his incredibly
strong and quick left hand on the piano.
Through high school
he took private composition lessons at the Cornish Institue in Seattle,
private voice lessons with classical recitals, was a regular solo
vocalist and keyboard performer at his Lutheran church, perfomed
with the Seattle Chorus and involved in regular music camp studies
at St. Olaf and other colleges, and was a regular pianist on staff
at Nordstrom. He strongly disliked being in high school and graduated
2 years early from Interlake High School at the age of 16 with 4
honors including academic scholarship.
At age 16 he entered
immediately into summer school at Pacific Lutheran University in
Tacoma, Wa for a major in composition and minor in vocal performance.
By 17 he had tested into Junior level standing and was studying
and performing in all top groups.
At 18 Conrad began
playing piano for Nordstrom in Bellevue, WA and began circulating
with performance groups. At 21 he studied copyright law and international
finance at the University of Miami and later relocated to Victorville,
CA. Although Victorville may seem an unlikely place for music production,
it lies half way between Las Vegas and Los Angeles which provided
easy access to performance venues during his early studies.
His methods
are sometimes unconventional, doing whatever it takes to bring musical
productions "full circle" to completion. He continues
his studies to this day with classes and heavy reading.
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