A Life of Music with Craig Soaries

What is your relationship with the piano/organ?
Great question and it is not a simple response since my relationship with the piano started at age 3 and the organ at age 7 (when my mother was hospitalized and my father needed an organist for worship service and I volunteered to play) with no prior lessons on organ.
Both instruments have different relationships.  The piano needs my careful attention to the use of the sustain pedal, particular touch depending on the genre of music I am playing, classical or gospel, and the control of volumes.  It is a completely different instrument than organ.
The hammond organ is a world of its own as is the pipe organ.  On the hammond I primarily play gospel music and love the rich, warm use of the drawbars, leslie speakers and the ability to share my feelings and emotions with my listeners and worshippers.
The pipe organ is the king of instruments and I have the chance to explore and express my technical abilities and command of the hundred, thousands of different sounds available through the use of organ stops and techniques from different music periods historically.

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What is your favorite song to play and why?
This is a difficult question for me to answer.  It depends on the particular frame of mind or mood I am in.  If I am in a meditative state it would be a hymn of which I have several favorites.  If in a technical, analytical frame of mind a classical by Bach would be in order on pipe organ.

How important are the arts to our culture?
Without the arts our culture would not be as impactful as it is.  I am on the continent of Africa several times every year since 1992 and the first time I went, as an artist and musician I knew I was home.  Music and the arts is woven within every fabric of the many cultures, languages and people groups within Africa, from which of course as Black people we originated.

Tell us details about your next performance.
In honor of my 70th birthday I plan to perform a few of my mother's favorite pipe organ pieces I play in New Jersey preferably at Princeton University Chapel.  I want to honor my 93 year old mother who is still living as my first piano teacher at three years old.
After the performance I am having a birthday luncheon with friends and family.

What advice would you give someone who seeks to work as a musician professionally?
My main advice would be what my father told me in 1972 to be bi-vocational and not to solely rely on music to pay the bills.  He insisted I obtain a liberal arts degree and that my music would always be with me.  For me he was absolutely right.