"Autumn Rains" is the second installment in a trio of neoclassical solo piano albums composed, performed, and produced by Andrew Souter. These projects have been two decades in the making and represent a return to traditional music composition, engaging song-writing, and the pure passion of emotional story-telling. This trio represents Andrew's most personal and intimate music. It is quite literally a love project. We hope it may help you on your journey, as it has us...

"Autumn Rains" is music inspired by the spirit of Agape. It is an album dedicated to the concept of spiritual love and universal compassion clothed in the metaphor of transcendental natural beauty. It is an album that simultaneously expresses deep love for both the creator as well as the creation. It is said God gave us music so that we could pray without words. It could be added that nature was provided as an example of exactly how to do this effectively. In this spirit, Autumn Rains is a prayer of gratitude for the opportunity to learn from the natural beauty of this world, and an expression of a sense of respect for the inescapable universal equality that nature imposes. It humbly attempts to capture deep feelings of awe, granduer, idealism, and a belief in the innate goodness of the world even when we all face exceptionally hard lessons.

The title is Biblical:

As they pass through the valley of weeping, they make it a place of springs. The Autumn Rains will clothe it with blessings.

Psalm 84:6, Psalms

Thematically this is an acknowledgement of the fact that pain and sacrifice is often a necessary part of growth. This is true in nature as well as humanity. To accept this fact, and to bleed willingly and joyfully for the universal good as Kahlil Gibran wrote - as nature does every day of her magnificent existence - is perhaps the highest form of love and compassion.

This is by no means an advocation of militant nationalism in any form. Quite the opposite. There are no states in nature, and all of creation is a unified church to which everyone belongs. The trees do not care much what religion you are; the rocks do not check your social status or what flag you fly. These are personal choices and all should be accepted and respected just as a forest accepts and respects oaks as well as pines as well as maples. Man versus man is the lowest possible form of human conflict. Man versus nature is slightly more elevated perhaps, but the only truly noble battle is man versus himself. Do not try to change the world, especially not by force. Try instead to change yourself. Learning humble self sacrifice is the hardest journey.

Give thanks for the opportunity to learn how to accomplish this skill set from the sublime example given to us in nature. Let it teach you how to think more in terms of union and less of opposition. Learn how to move away from man versus nature, and more towards man in harmony with nature. Let go of man versus man, and accept man in harmony with man. Accept whatever valley you have had to pass through personally, and take comfort and joy in knowing that your experience will be of benefit to others. Find true peace by resolving the final conflict of man versus himself and learn to live in harmony with yourself. When you love no longer say "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God." This is the spirit of agape.

September September is always a magical month anywhere else in the northern hemisphere. It never ceases to present the perfect opportunity to go outside and enjoy the wonder of nature. It's the perfect moment to feel the warmth of the sun on your face as it pierces through the branches of trees whose leaves may have already begun to show small signs of color. Its a perfect time to be thankful for the fun of summer and to prepare us for the deeper seasons we are about to enter. It always feels strangely like a graduation ceremony as well as the start of the next level of our growth and understanding. It's a decidedly peaceful month. It's a time of year as well as state of mind. Perhaps the entire world could live in September for a while? It would be a good start...

The Harvest Be careful to sow wisely the good seed, for one day you may have to eat its fruit. Perhaps grace is not demanding to receive everything that we think we are entitled to by our own merit or position, but rather to instead give thanks for not receiving everything we may deserve for our failures and folly. Let us be diligent year round to do the best we can to nurture our crop. Let us be humbly content to accept result of these efforts, whatever it may be, at the time of the harvest.

Waiting For December December is a special time of year for most of the world. As children we look forward to it with eager anticipation of all of the shiny new toys and presets we will get this season. As adults our priorities hopefully shift some and we worry more about the gift of giving than the act of receiving. We imagine making friends and loved-ones, new ones as well as old, happy in some small way. We envision participating with them in their life for a moment or two and sharing some form of intimacy. We celebrate the opportunity to give love with the intention of building lasting relationships, and if we are wise enough, we let go of expectations of immediate reciprocation and realize the act of giving is itself its own reward...

The River Life is like a river flowing in reverse. We start off our lives in the ocean, and we are immediately confronted with an infinite number of choices: should we go up the Nile, or the Amazon, or the Mississippi? We choose one and we proceed down that path, and after a while we face another decision: should we go up the right tributary or the left tributary? Again we make a choice and proceed. Throughout life we go through this process over and over again and our life path evolves and takes from.

As we make these choices our future options become limited in a fashion by the choices we make today, for while we can certainly always go back down the river to test another path, it requires an increasingly greater effort to make these kind of changes once we are already far down one particular path. Eventually as our life nears competition we approach a tiny spring on a mountaintop and we have no more choices. The path is complete and the journey is over.

I believe that there is an ideal path for everyone as an individual, and that this path can perhaps be called fate or destiny. I believe that it likely preexists before and outside our lives and is perhaps created by God or the universe or whatever your particular persuasion would like to call it.

I believe that this ideal path is the one that will bring us the most completeness and satisfaction in our lives as individuals, and at the same time, this is the path that will greatest fulfill an even larger plan or path towards a universal fate or destiny for humanity. All of our individual paths function like threads in a cosmic tapestry which represents a larger, universal plan that unfolds upon itself over the sea of time.

The interesting thing however, is that it is up to us as individuals to earnestly seek out our own ideal path, and as a consequence, our contribution to the larger tapestry. It is not something we are forced into; it is an active decision we must make and it requires effort. We must have the strength to follow it. I do not believe in "apathetic fatalism", as I would call it - "if it is meant to be, it will be". I believe it is up to us to honestly and truthfully search our hearts for our own ideal path, and then diligently go after it with vigor and passion and make it happen.