Arizona-born composer, Rick Leon has always been intrigued by instrumental music of all genres. Rick started his musical journey as many artists do playing Guitar, but later picked up the Bass and Drums in order to keep playing for the sake of his love of performing. He had always been drawn to various jazz artists and was captivated by the fusion wave of the late 70s. Early influences were Miles Davis, and Chuck Mangione. He later turned to the more amplified solo styles of Jeff Beck, and textures of Alex Lifeson. "I always found myself clinging to an artist that had a unique quality no matter what the style of music was." "(Jan) Hammer had Jeff Beck's guitar style through his keyboard and Bill Bruford could make garbage cans sound like music, if it was unique and different, I listened to it." Influenced by artists like Jan Hammer, T Lavitz , Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays at an early age, he turned to more instrumental approaches in his composition. He started experimenting with composing music using Computers, keyboards, and various MIDI authoring software. "Using keyboards and technology like the PC gives me the perfect outlet to put down what's in my head into music without the headaches of getting a group of musicians into a studio." Rick has taken his work and collaborated with local video productions and would someday like to take on the challenge of scoring a short film. --Tessa Elkland