“The process was the complete opposite of Destiny, going in without much pre-production or a lot of forethought. “The incredible fan support and feedback that I received from my weekly YouTube performances inspired me to gather my favorite of these performances and release them as an album that could bring a bit of lightness and optimism to people as we all struggle through this challenging time,” says Omar. He had an engineer record the audio of each performance separately, then once he put together the “playlist” for The Light Will Come, he sent it to the legendary Bernie Grundman for mastering. But soon, inspired by the events and effects of the ongoing pandemic and social/racial justice issues, he began composing and playing new works. When he first started the weekly single performances, Omar drew from his ample discography, which extends back to Opal Fire (2002) and Free as a Bird (2004) – both of which hit the Top 15 on Billboard’s New Age Albums chart. “In many ways, the songs on The Light Will Come bring everything back to primary elements, and remind me that no matter how large the productions of my albums have been they all start with me playing melodies on the piano.” “The time in quarantine forced me to step back, reflect on my life and think back to how everything started for me, playing piano at the age of six when my family lived in Prague,” says the NYC born, Los Angeles based artist, who grew up the son of a UN diplomat and grew up everywhere from Washington DC, Czech Republic and France to Cuba and his ancestral home of Afghanistan. The Light Will Come features ten highly improvisational solo piano pieces that Omar composed and debuted during on YouTube during this time. When COVID-19 hit and cancelled, among other things, Omar’s impending 35 city tour of China, Omar quickly regrouped and, starting in April, transformed his popular behind the scenes YouTube docu-series “Omar’s Music Chamber” into a popular weekly performance platform featuring him playing established hits and new compositions on his Yamaha grand piano or keyboard. After many years of releases on Real Music – including Echoes of Love, winner of the 2014 Grammy for Best New Age Album - Destiny also marked the launch of Omar’s independent label Twinbrook Entertainment. The album was mixed by four-time Grammy Award Winning engineer, Dave Reitzas at the iconic Westlake Studios in Hollywood, and its cover was designed by Award-Winning artist and photographer Glen Wexler. ![]() ![]() The culmination of his nearly two-decade journey as a recording artist, the years in the making project assembled an ensemble of some of the industry’s top musicians and arrangers, including Steve Oliver, (guitar, bass and arrangement), Ramon Stagnaro (guitar), Joel Taylor, (drums), Navid Kandelousi (violin) and Ramon Yslas (percussion). When 2020 began, Omar was looking forward to a whirlwind year of international touring in support of his 2019 album Destiny – an epic collection co-produced by legendary pop producer Walter Afanasieff and featuring the 80-piece Slovak Symphony Orchestra conducted by Shardad Rohani ( Yanni: Live at the Acropolis). In a year like no other, the pandemic has wreaked havoc with our health, the economy and our day to day lives, but with the release of The Light Will Come – Omar Akram’s first ever solo piano album – the Grammy Award winning artist, producer, composer and pianist offers us beautiful hope at the end of the proverbial dark tunnel while reminding us that nothing can stop the flow of creativity and determination to bring fans together to experience collective musical joy.
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