Scenes from a Velvet Room Stephan Moccio

• 1 Beneath The Amber Hour 04:27
• 2 Room 3A 04:51
• 3 Melt 04:49
• 4 Pink Lady 02:14
• 5 Positano 03:27
• 6 Like An Old Photograph 05:10
• 7 Dear Burt 02:53
• 8 Bossa Noir 03:10
• 9 The Beautiful Undoing 04:42
• 10 Where The River Heals 02:47
• 11 Opaline 03:17
• 12 I Break Everything I Love 04:03
• Total Runtime 45:50

Info zu Scenes from a Velvet Room

Ontario-born Stephan Moccio has dedicated his career to composing blockbuster hits for the biggest names in pop music, with cuts for Celine Dion (“A New Day Has Come”), Miley Cyrus (“Wrecking Ball”), and fellow Canadian The Weeknd (“Earned It”). Before these stars came knocking, his keen sense of melody was honed – six nights a week – in the lush lobby of Toronto’s Four Seasons hotel.

It was in this “Velvet Room” that a young Moccio worked as house pianist, learning to read rooms, shape ambience, and interact with his audience. These experiences are revisited on Moccio’s fourth solo album for Decca Records, Scenes From a Velvet Room – a wistful, nostalgic and jazz-infused reflection on these formative years.

This album was born after a period of introspection and reflection for Moccio. After a quarter-century spent penning iconic melodies, Moccio could easily rest on a catalog of chart-breakers like Celine Dion’s “A New Day Has Come,” Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball,” the Weeknd’s “Earned It,” and “I Believe,” the theme song for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Instead, he’s looking back to the turn of the millennium, when, in a liminal space between his precocious adolescence and his blockbuster songwriting career, he took a gig playing piano six nights a week in the lobby of the Four Seasons Toronto. On his fourth solo LP—Scenes From a Velvet Room, he tells that story with the detail of a tableau vivant and the clarity of retrospection.

The Four Seasons gig was a coveted one, but Moccio sees it less as a career stepping stone than a series of essential learning experiences: how to read a room and cater to a crowd, how to subconsciously curate a vibe, how to slip into a space seamlessly and slide out gracefully. An artist can control the atmosphere of a space just as effectively from its outskirts as its center, he found. “I was the guy who was always behind the scenes,” he says, smiling at how far he’s come.

Scenes From a Velvet Room begins exactly as Moccio’s sets did: with the sweetly sad strokes of virtuosic fingers first touching keys. In the late fall and early spring, these melancholic meanderings coincided with the sunset, which suffused the atrium with soft, amber light. Conjured immaculately, this image persists for the entirety of Scenes’ opening track, “Beneath the Amber Hour.”

“I couldn't be brazen to start,” he says. “I had to enter with a very quiet tone. I had to noodle and play these little jazz licks and get under everyone's skin. And then they'd realize there was a pianist in the room, and all of a sudden I'd have people come up to me and say, ‘Can you play this song? Can you play that song?’" Three songs on the album feature New Orleans legend Branford Marsalis. Switching between soprano and tenor sax, he plays snatches of a melody that reaches its ultimate form on the album’s final track, “I Break Everything I Love,” when Moccio finally plays it on piano. The song recalls the way Moccio would end his Four Seasons sets with crushing ballads like “My Funny Valentine”—soft enough to avoid intruding on conversations but with the emotional weight to bring the house down for those paying attention. There’s a key difference here, though: In his early 20s, Moccio achieved this atmosphere by translating the work of past masters. The older, wiser Moccio is telling his own story now. It’s effortlessly catchy, of course, but it’s also wistful and tender, a careful but creative reimagining of memories both treasured and painful.

Since the arrival of his debut album Tales of Solace, recorded and released during deep COVID, Moccio has become hugely popular with Gen Z. “Fracture,” the standout hit from that record, has been streamed on Spotify more than 143 million times. And multiple tracks from each of his other major releases—2021’s defiantly personal Lionheart and 2024’s gorgeously introspective Legends, Myths, and Lavender—have racked up tens of millions of plays on the platform, with many millions more impressions on TikTok.

Stephan Moccio

Please Note: We offer this album in its native sampling rate of 48kHz, 24-bit. The provided 96kHz version was up-sampled and offers no audible value!

Stephan Moccio
Four years ago, Stephan Moccio was struck by a flash of inspiration that set him on the path to fulfilling a lifelong dream. Recognized in 1988, this dream was to create an epic anthem for the Olympic games upon their return to Canada. Recently released nationwide, his 2010 Olympic theme “I Believe,” performed by the young and talented Nikki Yanofsky, invokes the captivating spirit of the games while bringing all Canadians together in support of a country destined to win at home.

Working alongside long-time friend and eventual collaborator, Alan Frew of Glass Tiger fame, Stephan has created a musical classic, representing the emotional, uplifting and empowering disposition of the Olympics. In addition to the official 2010 song, Stephan has reworked the theme for over 200 cues to be heard throughout CTV’s 16-day broadcast.

Stephan’s sophomore album is slated to be released in the Spring of 2010 and will follow the success of his debut album – a collection of 22 sophisticated and subtle solo piano compositions (EXPOSURE), which earned him accolades from around the world. BILLBOARD Magazine boldly stated, “Stephan Moccio’s piano acts as the poet’s pen,” which positioned Moccio as one of the world’s premier talents.

Stephan’s musical life began with piano lessons at the age of four. After an award-winning teen music career, he went on to complete an honours degree in composition and piano performance at the University of Western Ontario. He was offered a scholarship to the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston, but instead chose to focus on developing his professional career, signing a publishing deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing at the age of 22. Throughout his eight-year tenure at Sony/ATV, he matured as a songwriter, producer, arranger and performer, leaving in 2003 to form his own publishing company, Sing Little Penguin Inc.

Stephan has written songs for international superstars such as Céline Dion (“A New Day Has Come”), Sarah Brightman, Josh Groban, Olivia Newton-John and chanteuse Hayley Westenra.

With experience conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra “I Believe” sessions, Stephan has begun to distinguish himself as a remarkably engaging international talent, bringing to life his outstanding work in all of his established roles of performer, arranger, composer, songwriter and producer.

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