Featured Artist – Kimberly Steele
from "Kim Steele on Being an Asian American Composer"
Published in the Korean magazine GUITARLAB December 2005

I am half-Japanese, German and Irish. I am "hapa." The word hapa comes from Hawaiian slang, referring to a person of mixed descent. I started piano lessons at about age six, went on to play the Classical gitar, and have built a career as a piano teacher. The one thread that has run throughout my entire life is the will to create music. When I was a little girl, my sole desire for learning the piano was to express the melodies that were constantly crashing around my head.

Growing up in Chicago, I was heavily exposed to three style of music: American country-western, Chicago blues and Classical pieces that came from my training. From the beginning, I craved something I could not find in the styles of music I was exposed to. I found that the only way to make myself happy when composing was to combine, combine, combine. If making music was a recipe, I took one part popular song form and blended it with my favorite melodic shapes from Japanese and Chinese folk songs. I folded in the harmonies that dominate my mind and sprinkled is all with Classical orchestration borrowed from my training.

Songwriting with Kim Steele available Wednesday Evenings Beginning in January!!