Click above to listen to Hymn to Bach from my 7th album A Thousand Years, featuring timeless classics and hymns. If you enjoy, please consider ordering the CD, MP3 Album, or sheet music from the A Thousand Years store page. You can also download on iTunes and all other digital outlets.

How can J.S. Bach’s creativity inspire yours?

Johann Sebastian Bach lived from 1685 to 1750 in Germany. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. There are over 1,100 known compositions. Somehow his music speaks to the soul, and I believe there is a reason why.

When I was taking twelve years of piano lessons from 1st through 12th grade, I was introduced to Bach’s Invention No. 8 when I was fourteen (also the year I wrote my first song). I knew this piece by memory for the next fifteen years, and would play it often. About ten years ago I came to deeply appreciate one of Bach’s greatest quotes…

“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” Bach wrote the initials “S. D. G.” at the end of all his church compositions, and many others. This dedication meant Soli Deo Gloria (To the Glory of God Alone). Bach’s music still lifts the heart and energizes the soul, and Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring is still one of the most popular and well known wedding songs around the world today.

In tribute to Bach, I arranged Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring into my style blended with original composing. This solo piano piece opens my album December Peace (2009 Best Holiday Album, ZMR Awards). Listen to Jesu here. For the album A Thousand Years I arranged another famous Bach melody, Air on the G String, and combined this with the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy to honor Bach’s dedication Soli Deo Gloria. Listen to Hymn to Bach here.

I believe we all have one or two God-given gifts, passions and talents. Any number of skills and interests can be developed to become strengths, but when hard work and practice are put into something we love and are passionate about — and then we do this to the glory of God — the potential blessings are timeless and without limit.

What is your creative gift you are most passionate about?

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” — Isaiah 6:3