Charlotte composer shapes classical music into something new

What would have Chopin have done, had he composed in a room next to two little boys likely to wake up at any moment and roar like dinosaurs?

Perhaps he’d have put felt between the strings and hammers of his instrument to mute the sound, creating a warmly resonant tone. Maybe, instead of writing traditional mazurkas, nocturnes and waltzes, he’d have come up with mysterious, alluring riffs on those forms that floated into the ear and settled softly in the pleasure centers of the brain.

Possibly, had he known such a thing as a microphone, he’d have nestled one inside the piano, capturing the groans and sighs of wood and metal to make us feel we were voyaging on a musical ship.

That’s what Chad Lawson did with “The Chopin Variations.” This singular combination of classical themes and new-age sensibilities inspired the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to dub this “the classical CD for people who hate classical music” – though it’s truer to call it a CD for people who want to hear classical music as a springboard for meditative improvisations.

The music became downloadable last fall and earned a No. 1 rating on classical iTunes. Two weeks ago, the newly released two-CD set made him the first local musician to reach the top position of Billboard’s Classical Chart. You can hear him play these variations live next Sunday at Stage Door Theater or sample them at Amazon.

The tubercular 19th-century Pole and fit 21st-century Charlottean have little in common, save for devotion to the keyboard. But Lawson’s classical and jazz training have merged in a uniquely relaxed approach to that master’s music, positioning him atop his own mini-genre.

“I grew up on classical music, but I was a sloppy player,” says Lawson, a Morganton native. “I always wanted to put my own fingerprints on it: (Improvising for) two minutes in a cadenza was not enough.”

So he extended 10 pieces into meditations of five or six minutes. On one disc, he performed alone. On the second, he hired violinist Judy Kang (who has played for Lady Gaga) and cellist Rubin Kodheli (who has worked with Kanye West) to arrange and record their own sparse contributions, which were then blended with his.

“I gave them no direction whatsoever,” says Lawson from his home in southeast Charlotte, where he recorded himself. “They understood simplicity is what matters, and they caught the mood with a few notes.”

Lawson, who has played piano for 35 of his 40 years, took a complicated route to simplicity.

Finding his own voice

Sha Na Na, which played Woodstock six years before he was born and perfected a half-joking oldies act, inspired him as a boy. He played pop music but tried to convince himself he needed classical training at Peabody Conservatory of Music.

“I auditioned, and a woman asked, ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’ I said, ‘I’d like to become a studio musician.’ She said, ‘You’re in the wrong place.’ ”

After two years at Berklee College of Music in Boston, he realized he was in the wrong place again. He was indeed playing studio gigs so often that sleep and studies suffered. He was in the school cafeteria when faculty member Livingston Taylor sat down.

“I told him I was going to Appalachian State University to major in computer science, because that was a stable career. He asked, ‘What makes working for IBM more stable than being a musician? What if they suddenly lay off 500 people?’ So Lawson moved to Charlotte in 1996 and, at 21, landed in a band called Hipshack and gigged with guitarist John O’Gorman.

He formed the Chad Lawson Trio and released a jazz album that caused a stir in Japan, where he says it was the second-best-seller behind a Zoot Sims disc. (“I had no idea, until someone called to ask for more copies. That taught me to read all the small print in contracts.”)

He did an album that reinterpreted songs from “The Wizard of Oz,” then another (“Unforeseen”) that mixed originals with compositions by Soundgarden and The Police. Meanwhile, he waited tables at Capital Grille, where he met his future wife. “I was infatuated the second I saw Barbara,” he recalls. “I used to walk around behind her saying, ‘No one’s gonna love you like I am,’ and she’d groan.”

Move to the big city ... and back

“Unforeseen” did well on jazz charts, so he headed to New York to “study at Manhattan School of Music, to learn ... and to get my butt kicked.”

Two good things came out of that move. First, absence made Barbara’s heart grow fonder. On her visits north, Lawson discovered she was a great kisser, had (like him) strong faith in Christ and possessed a huge heart. They married the following year.

Second, he got a gig touring Europe and South America as a piano player with Julio Iglesias. Some nights, he added only a few notes to the huge production. But Lawson had an epiphany, sitting on a Spanish stage and not playing in front of 30,000 people: If Julio could go solo, he could.

He moved back to Charlotte, “missing New York every hour of the day at first,” to raise a family.

And “solo” (except for Barbara’s support and guidance) really meant solo. He wrote. He improvised. He learned to record and promote himself. And he stepped into a new groove in 2009 with “Set on a Hill,” his first of five solo albums.

“My dad made a living as a freelance furniture designer, so I grew up with the idea that dads could work at home and create,” says Lawson.

“What surprises me most about Chad is how business-savvy he is,” says Jon Muedder, founder and creative director of the Charlotte video production company Caravan. “It’s rare to find a composer that has Chad’s level of talent paired with discipline and business sense.

“Chad’s greatest asset as a film composer is the way he interprets emotions. He understands the relationship between music and the screen. It’s easy to get attached to what’s trending right now in the music world. What I love about Chad is that I feel we are creating something we will appreciate five years from now.”

Many musicians say (with varying degrees of honesty) their music matters more than their egos. But when Lawson says, “I am a non-spotlight person,” you see that in his album covers. He peers shyly down a New York street on “Set on a Hill,” remains a ghostly presence on “The Space Between” in 2013 and doesn’t appear on “The Piano” or “A Piano Christmas” (both 2011).

An artist who connects

This easygoing demeanor was one reason why the Arts & Science Council gave him a Regional Artist Project Grant for 2012. A panel of judges gave him the highest score of any performing artist from an 11-county region. They noted “the polish and versatility of his work, including a tremendous infusion of emotion and skill,” says Ryan Deal, ASC’s vice president for cultural and community investment.

The ASC worked with Lawson on the Piano Parking project, which put uprights decorated with original art uptown for professionals to play. “Chad was a completely adaptable partner as details came together,” says Deal. “He decided to remove the front cover to engage passers-by with not only his beautiful music but a ‘behind the scenes’ look at what makes a piano work.”

Today Lawson goes from classical variations to film and commercial scores to free pieces he deposits on SoundCloud to riffs in the pit band for “Motown the Musical” at the Belk.

He’s living his dad’s motto: Be able to make money while you sleep. Streaming services, Lawson says, “are a musician’s best friends.”

He’ll play three concerts next month in the South Tyrol region of Italy, then go to Chicago. But he seeks fewer distant jobs, because “there are only so many you can accept while seeing enough of your family and retaining your sanity.”

His philosophy, he says, is “Take life an idea at a time. I wait for my mind, body and spirit to say, ‘It’s time to do an album.’ That first tune has to pop into my head; then I can really cook. If I make myself sit down every day, it can turn into a mess.

“Life creates art. You set goals, but you don’t assign dates. You can’t plan on next year.”

This story was originally published September 18, 2015 at 1:46 PM with the headline "Charlotte composer shapes classical music into something new."