On January 14th 1956, in a small suburb of Cincinnati Ohio, a healthy lad was born into this world. He would later become a composer of instrumental music with a primary focus on music for the stringed instruments.
Don was raised on a dairy farm in Illinois. As a toddler, he would sit in awe listening while his mother played the organ. It was from this early impression that he began to pursue music. During his fourth year of grade school, Don began to play an instrument known as the flute-o-phone and later the cornet. During his freshman year in high school he was introduced to the acoustic guitar by one of his close friends. After a few guitar lessons, he began to pick out some basic musical ideas that were later to become his first musical compositions. It was from these beginnings that his music has evolved to become his prime passion and interest for personal expression.
He continued to play guitar for many years until 1993 when a left hand crush injury caused him to put performing music on hold. This event also caused him to realize the importance of notating his original music and to learn music composition.
By 1997 he was able to complete his first demo CD titled "Night Wind", which is a collection of 19 original short pieces for solo guitar. This album was never formally released as his playing skills were lessened by his earlier injury. The album is currently out of print. For the next nine years he continued learning music composition and to compose music on the classical Guitar.
The loss of his mother in late 2005 was another turning point in his life. This had a profound influence on Don where he completely changed his focus. The emotional impact over the loss of his mother resulted in the completion of over 40 titles in 2006 alone. Also, he began arranging his music for small group ensembles, the string quartet, guitar and cello while intermixing instruments in the woodwind family to "dress up the string sound". "I'm still learning," says Don. "When inspired, one must act on it now for it is fleeting."
A complete list of works is available on his website - http://www.stringtunes.com/user and at his website/blog http://donrathjr.com/music/list-of-works/. Please feel free to stop in anytime!
Late in 2006 he met Allen "Big Al" Wagner of BigToeStudio on the Internet. Using the East West sound samples as the source for the instruments and arranging the mastering of the CD over the internet with Alan, both projects; "Heart Strings", completed in December of 2006 and "Dawn of a New Day" completed in early 2007.
As Allen puts it, "This is a very interesting project that involved the emulation of an entire orchestra using only technology. Therefore, it features, even more, of the talent and skill of the writer and arranger, Don Rath Jr."
A fan comment on his website reads, "Awesome. Beautifully orchestrated! What you have created here is what music is all about." It is from comments like this that Dons debut album, Heart Strings, was completed and released through his website StringTunes and CDBaby on January 3rd 2007. His second album Dawn of a New Day was released shortly thereafter on March 21st 2007.
On March 21st, 2008, Don released his third album titled "Colors of Cello". It is a collection of twelve compositions featuring instrumental music for cello, solo and duet, along with other instrument arrangements.
He is planning to redo "Night Wind", his original solo fingerstyle guitar CD and he hopes to complete the production of 5 additional, all original instrumental music albums as well as music notation books for each as funding permits. In the mean time he continues to compose music and to make contributions on his blog to help in educating others on music theory and music composition.
Don states, "Playing classical guitar remains one of my strongest passions and enjoyments in life with the exception of playing with my grandchildren and composing music. Writing music brings me much joy. I hope you too find pleasure in listening to my music. This music is for you. A gift from the spheres. I just happened to catch it and write it down."