Christian Wiles

For Christian Wiles, music and art have always been an essential part of his life.

His father was a trained classical pianist, and his mother was an acclaimed artist. The love and passion for music and art indeed run in the family.

He was raised in a home, where waking up on Saturday mornings to the sounds of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Schubert, and the list goes on of classical symphonies and concertos that his father would play, sometimes at unimaginable volume levels, was normalcy.

Growing up in the small town of Ashland, VA he was your typical kid with a paper route and best friends across the street and around the corner who cheerfully spent endless days of playing in each other’s back yards. The days were usually long, and they undeniably played hard, with biking and skateboarding being some of their favorite past times.

Christian would always talk about with fondness how he distinctly remembers how at the age of 12, he put down his skateboard and picked up a guitar.

He was intrigued entirely, compelled, and taught himself everything that he could about the instrument, practicing as much as he could until his fingers bled, literally. The first song that he learned was “Yesterday” by the Beatles, where he used a piece of sheet music that he had found in his father’s collection of classical piano pieces.

In high school, he studied guitar in band class and voice with the choir. Like most other aspiring musicians/want-to-be-rock-stars in high school, he also played in a few bands. The first was called “Colours.” When you come across him, you should ask what color his leotard was. 🙂 It has always been an excellent conversational piece.

Colours disbanded when some of the older members graduated from high school and moved to Mexico in search of fame and fortune, a rather bold move at that time.

The remaining members of that group started a new one named “Palantir”. They played original jazz-rock-fusion, some old originals from Colours and also some rock standards from bands like Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Alan Parsons Project, and Genesis.

During his senior year, Palantir disbanded as three more members graduated from high school and moved on to adulthood, college, etc.

When Christian was charting out his educational path, he was torn between engineering and music for college. He auditioned for Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) Classical Guitar program with a steel-string guitar. His entrance piece was “Mood for a Day,” which was a composition of Steve Howe, the guitarist for the progressive rock band “Yes,” his favorite band at that time. He could still vividly remember the scene as if it was only yesterday.

He was accepted! However, they told him that he would need to get a classical guitar with nylon strings (just a minor detail). The excitement that he felt was overwhelming!

At VCU, he studied Classical and Jazz Guitar and electronic music. He was exposed to the kind of music that was practically the opposite of what he had grown up with. Jazz Combos, Big Band, and frequenting the clubs to listen to jazz trios and quartets during the evening became the new normal to him. Richmond had attracted a substantial number of prominent jazz instructors and players in the early 80’s, and he was sitting right in the middle of it to soak it all in.

After college, he married and continued his musical journey within the walls of his local church as an instrumentalist, choir director, and eventually, as a worship music director.

Through the years, Christian’s journey with music has morphed, leading him through different seasons and serving different churches and ministry teams. Music has always been a passion that has been expressed in a number of different ways.

His personal musical tastes have also expanded. He found himself still loving the classics of Bach and Beethoven. Thanks to his dad, who was really one of his major influences! Along with those classics, you can find him listening to the opposite end of the spectrum with aggressive metal artists like Arch Echo, Plini, and Tony MacAlpine.

Also in the mix are his favorite jazz artists like Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Frank Gambale, and Morten Schantz.

Artists like Michael W. Smith, Chris Tomlin, and Planetshakers have helped keep him grounded in his faith, and they are surely on his heavy rotation list as well!

Today, the journey of Christian Wiles continues. He remains diligent in his discipline and faithful in his craft. In his mind and heart, he is playing for at least an audience of One that deserves his ultimate best at all times.

I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoy playing.
~Christian Wiles