About 10 years ago, Stephan Moccio was a university student in London, Ontario, hanging around before a concert, hoping to meet Celine Dion.
The music student managed to meet her manager, Rene Angelil, and talked his way into a backstage meeting with the then-rising singer, where he confidently predicted he would one day be a top player in the music business.
"I took her aside and jokingly said, 'I am going to one day be one of the big producers and songwriters'," Moccio told JAM! Music via telephone from Toronto.
"She said, 'Wow, that's great!' She signed my CD, 'Stephan, Bon chance! XOXO.' I still have that," he said.
Skip ahead a decade, and the St. Catharines, Ont.-born, Toronto-based producer and songwriter has landed the title song and debut single from Dion's forthcoming album, "A New Day Has Come."
The single was shipped electronically to radio stations this week. Moccio said that within one minute of channel-surfing, he heard four separate radio stations playing the track.
"It's exciting ... It is a songwriter's dream to have Celine sing your song," he said of the initial response to the track.
"Some massive plans are still involved with this song. It keeps on getting better."
If Dion's comeback album achieves anywhere near the multi-platinum business of past releases, then Moccio's life, career and bank account are about to be transformed.
"Let me say it is a lot of money," Moccio, 29, sheepishly concedes when asked about the financial windfall that will almost certainly be heading his way.
"A song like this has a life for years and years to come. The money will come in for 10 or 20 years. Sure, our biggest time is over the next year or year-and-a-half, but hence it will be re-sung, re-cut. Celine will be performing it for the rest of her life. It will be a big part of her career."
It's a happy ending to a story that consists of equal parts talent, hard work and good luck. So how did a classically trained pianist end up writing a major song for the biggest selling artist in the world?
For several years now, Moccio has been an in-demand session player, arranger, orchestrator, film and TV composer, songwriter and producer in the Canadian business, co-writing songs with everyone from Dan Hill and ex-Junkhouse frontman Tom Wilson, to Ashley MacIsaac, Melanie Doane and Chantal Kreviazuk.
His resume includes programming and string arrangements for Philosopher Kings ("Hurts To Love You"), programming and arranging for Prozzak ("Hot Show"), co-production and playing with B4-4, and co-writing and arranging Edwin's hit "Alive."
Last May, he was in Los Angeles, where he had been working on songs with *NSync's J.C. Chasez (the song they worked on, "Lose Myself," may yet end up on one of the group's albums), when he received a call asking if he would be interested in writing with Montreal-based songwriter Aldo Nova.
"I got to Montreal, and in one weekend, we wrote a bunch of songs," he recalled.
"I am more the instrumental guy. We collaborate on both ends. I am at the piano, I had this idea in my head, and (Nova) wrote lyrics to it."
Of the three or four song ideas they worked up, one was a track Moccio describes as an "ethereal Enya-meets-Annie-Lennox" number, originally written in 6/8 time but altered for the radio version to more conventional 4/4, he explained.
Nova, a personal friend of Dion's, came up with a lyric about the relationship between the singer and her young son.
"The one thing (Nova) brought, on top of writing a great lyric, is that he is such good friends with (Dion). He wrote the song about her boy," Moccio said.
"A lot of people would submit songs about that, but how could you write a song about her boy if you don't really know her? Aldo knows her well enough to get inside her head and her heart. It didn't come off as fromage that way."
The resulting song, "A New Day Has Come," was the one Moccio focused on when he returned to his home recording studio, treating the demo of the song like a finished recording.
"I was that confident; the song was fresh and cool. It had a new-enough sound, but tying in elements of Celine. It has the big drama moment. It has all that stuff, which is what Celine does so well. That is why people love Celine. They gravitate to her because of her passion."
Nova and producer Walter Afanasieff thought enough of Moccio's ideas that they incorporated many of those elements into the finished track, he said. When he got word that Dion liked the song enough to record it and make it the title track, he was overwhelmed.
"Every songwriter wants to write a song for Celine. It means so much. Even just take the financial side out of it, it just makes your career explode. It was beyond my wildest dreams for it to be the first single, to be the title track."
Considering financial matters, though, Moccio has no complaints about how he was treated. Some songwriters who place tracks on major albums are reportedly forced to forfeit some of their publishing revenue in return for a shot at the big time. Elvis Presley's manager, Col. Tom Parker, was notorious for cutting just those kinds of deals. That's not the case with Moccio.
"I have heard horror stories about that at this level, and I am not talking about Celine specifically. Sometimes when you get songs of this stature, and it is going to generate money, you have to sacrifice publishing.
"There is nothing dirty about this deal. That is the amazing thing about this deal.
"The song spoke for itself. That is what is so exciting. It had nothing to do with anything else.
"It spoke for the message of the song, the melody, the arrangement. It was from pure love of the song."
With news of his coup spreading through the music business, Moccio has received a flurry of offers to write and produce. Currently, he is in the studio cutting a classical album with Maritime cellist Denise Djokic. He hopes to also complete work on his own instrumental album, and has his eye on one day making music with the artist Seal.
Throughout this whole songwriting process, he never had the opportunity to renew his acquaintance with Dion. But he said he has plans to meet her for dinner when he is in Los Angeles for the Grammys. (Djokic is to be a featured string player during Train's performance of "Drops Of Jupiter").
Whatever the future holds, the success of "A New Day Has Come" should give him the security to make whatever music strikes his fancy.
"Now, I have the opportunity to work on whatever moves me. I don't care if it sells one record or 100 million. The one thing Celine or success can offer you is stability to chose what projects you want to be involved with.
"I want to put good music out there that I can be proud of." (More on: Celine Dion)
