Through the music of Gordon Roqué, a song written is a life lived, an emotion felt, and a feeling expressed. It is all these things made manifest and so much more. Roque's musical journey began as a child with a scant six months of piano lessons at the age of seven. Howsoever brief, this introduction to music was the start to his on-going love affair with the piano and the art of writing songs. He would spend many years drawn to his dad's keyboards and making up little melodies of his own. Of course, it didn't hurt that Roqué, who was born in the Philippines, grew up on a lush and gorgeous tropical island in the South Pacific called American Samoa. Countless weekend barbeques on the beach, swaying coconut trees, the feel of rugged sand on bare feet, and the swelling crescendos of the thunderous and emotive Pacific Ocean provided many distractions for fifteen years of his life. At home, songs of Elvis and the Beatles were in constant rotation on his parents' record player, and, on the island, singing was an integral part of the local culture. According to Roqué, "There wasn't a single person, child or adult, who couldn't sing .. or harmonize. Singing was a way of life back in Samoa, and this taught me so much." Such a richly textured upbringing deeply informs Roque's vivid and imaginative writing style. It was not until adulthood that Gordon Roqué got a tiny glimpse of his musical potential. It occurred one night when he was casually writing a poem on the envelope of an electricity bill. He remembers thinking that this particular poem would make a great song. So, he dusted off his keyboard and laid the poem on top of it. After an hour of fiddling around, a melody started to wrap itself around these written words. What engulfed him after this was an unstoppable flow of creative energy. "My musical education has been a sequence of discoveries. I have been unearthing abilities that I didn't know I had", says Roqué. A self-taught musician, Roqué proudly considers himself a lifetime student of music. Today, Roqué is fully engaged in a life lived on and through his songs. There is not a personal experience, uncomfortable or otherwise, that he is unwilling to share and explore in his compositions. Underneath his often intense lyrical content, one will hear a bold blend of classical music, jazz, pop, and ragtime stylings. As a result, Roque's music has its own potent and colorful sound and identity. Living and working in Nashville, Tennessee, Gordon Roqué is currently hard at work on his debut album which is due for release in the fall of 2008.