Sword Art Online – Piano Ballads features six track selections, originally composed by renowned composer Yuki Kajiura for the Sword Art Online anime series. My albums tend to include different dynamics and types of pieces, both to offer variety and to tell the listener a story. But in this case, the tracks are all soothing and relaxing piano pieces that does not extend past 76 bpm. As a result, all of the pieces are playable for intermediate level pianists and I highly recommend giving them a try if you are a pianist and enjoy Kajiura’s music.

More oft than not I prefer to stay close to the source material when adapting piano pieces into my own arrangements. However, in this case the original compositions include other instruments such as harp, violin and cello. Consequently, most of my decisions tied to arranging these pieces appear in adapting that instrumentation to solo piano. No track here is a simple copy of Kajiura’s score.

The artwork was drawn by mirkodellamonic and the arrangements, performance and the rest of the production was handled by me. It was licensed through Soundrop and delivered to 20 different music platforms when it released in May of 2022.