Stan Szymanski

I grew up in Pittsburgh PA. When I was a teenager all of my friends were in a band and I wanted to be in the band and there was one spot open—the bass guitar. So my dad bought me my first bass, a 1977 Fender Musicmaster. So I put records (and 8 tracks and cassettes!) on and learned how to play by ear.

When I got to college (the University of Pittsburgh) I was blessed to be one of the first students of Mr. Jeffery Mangone (Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh Basset, Wheeling Symphony, Duquesne Univ.and Slippery Rock University) at Pitt. I studied through the Simandl String Bass (classical) and the Carol Kaye Electric Bass series of books as well as a Jazz repertoire. Then my teacher encouraged me to go out and do music!

So I did, playing every gig and session I could get to . Over the next few years I continued to hone my reading and jazz chops and had great opportunities to play with great musicians and acts like The Lettermen, Randy and Rick Purcell, Lee Robinson, Nick Dialoso, David Brosky and many, many more. I played huge amounts of theatre, jazz, big band and rock!

I met and married my beautiful wife. We met Jesus two years after we were married and life was never the same. We then had two children, a boy and a girl. I was playing in church regularly life was ‘good’.

When my daughter turned age 2, she stopped talking. Then at 2 1/2 she stopped walking and at 2 3/4 the seizures started. She was discovered to have ‘Williams Syndrome’ and still regressing. At 4 1/4 she was additionally found to have Late Infantile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis-the late infantile form of Batten Disease a fatal disease. Making a very long story short (if you really want to see it, go to http://www.encouragingangels.org and order our movie) we co-developed a therapy that added almost 5 years to her life and are currently working on the writings regarding this.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, my daughter went home to spend eternity with Jesus in August 2008.

Because of my daughter, I began recording. Because of my daughter, we started the ministry of Encouraging Angels to change the life of the disabled and special needs (and their families) and to see their presence change every church in America.

www.encouragingangels.org (Ministry website)

www.stanthebassman.com (Artist website)