I composed this solo piano piece while working for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines as a solo piano player. Barcelona Spain was my home port for 3 years and one day a week I would wander around, exploring the old neighborhoods and exotic buildings. The melody for my song "Barcelona" came to me while I was on one of my long walks around this beautiful city.
This video was shot at the Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center in Key West, Florida by Digital Island Media - http://www.digitalislandmedia.com
Bill Lorraine, composer, writer, pianist and sculptor, has made Key West his home for the past 30 years.
For the last ten years, Bill Lorraine has lived a dual life - four months of the year working as a solo piano player for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines in Europe, and the other eight months living in Key West with his wife Ann, playing piano at hotels and restaurants, writing articles for Solares Hill newspaper and working in Investor Relations for Mel Fisher’s Treasures.
Bill Lorraine is well known in Key West as a composer and songwriter.
He has produced four CD's of his original music and one CD of his piano performance. All are presented for sale on this web site, along with downloads of individual songs. You may listen to excerpts from a few songs before placing your order.
The manuscript scores from several of Lorraine's original musical compositions are available for sale on this web site, including his Oratorio "Easter Green" for piano, chorus and four soloists, "Fanfare to the Sun," for brass ensemble, "Rain," and “Barcelona,” for solo piano, “A Key West Kind of Christmas,” for soprano and one of Lorraine’s gospel songs, “City of No Regrets."
Bill Lorraine's new book of poetry, "From the Balconies of Key West," is a collection of 59 poems and 31 pen line illustrations by his wife Ann Lorraine. Bill Lorraine's novel, "The Heat," set in Key West, was published in 2004. Both these books are available for sale on this web site, and excerpts from both books are presented here.
Bill Lorraine's stone sculptures have been displayed and sold at Key West art galleries and group shows, including the annual “Sculpture Key West." Photos of some of Lorraine’s sculptures are shown on this site.
Bill Lorraine's 15 movement Hemingway Orchestral Suite perforemd by the CharlotteCivic OPrchestra in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Click to listen to the complete Hemingway Orchestral Suite.
My home town of Key West is a lot like every other American town of 30,000 population. The differences begin with the palm trees, the unusual abundance of flowers, and the tropical weather. But the biggest difference is the boundry line that forms a circle around the outskirts of our city. Most Americans can hop in their cars and drive into the country, but the ocean surrounds Key West, and the town takes up all the land area. Only a thin string of sandbars and mangrove islands connect it to the mainland 160 miles away.
Before Henry Flagler extended his Florida East Coast Railroad to Key West in 1912, the only way to get to the island was by boat. So the history of Key West is the history of people who had a strong connection to the ocean. Books on Key West's history talk about the wreckers, the spongers, the pirates, the Navy, the shrimpers and the boatbuilders. Many of the first residents were ship's carpenters who built their homes with highly elevated vantage points call "widow's walks" which gave them an unobstructed view of the ocean. In their travels they brought back exotic tropical plant life from all parts of the world - flowering trees, orchids, coconut palms, mahogany, Queen's umbrella trees, and flowers that bloomed all year long like Hibiscus and Bougainvilla.
Key West is located beside a natural coral reef that breaks the ocean's waves six miles out, giving Key Westers calm beaches and crystal-clear water at the shoreline.