http://www.vagmusic.com/articles/New-Age_Summary.html
New Age is one of the most controversial music genres due to its broadness. In fact, there are three different conceptions of what a song or a piece of music must include to be considered as belonging to this category. Just one thing is clear: New age music, no matter the category, is a branch of electronic music. New age has been influenced by electronic, ambient, classical, ethnic, world, and prog-rock music. Moreover, the subject matter of new age songs is the cosmos, space, the well-being, nature and environment, dreams, among others. en-us http://www.vagmusic.com/articles/Genres_7767.html Wed, 12 Apr 2006 03:35:31 CST Composer and producer Michael Cretu and his wife Sandra Cretu initiated the Enigma musical project in 1990, with Sandra providing vocals on some of the songs. The couple also works parallelly on another project named “Sandra” which has already released five studio albums and is currently working on the sixth.

A characteristic feature of all Enigma albums (except the album Voyageur) is that they all start and end with the sound of a horn. This particular horn sound is mixed into the first track in the introductory music and added at the end of the album mixed in the last track final sounds.

The music of Enigma is rich and incorporates many overlapping sounds, from Gregorian chants and tribal chants, to Shakuhachi flutes, reversed vocals and experimental samples. Everything is mixed and carefully arranged into the final sensual, harmonizing songs.

Enigma’s first albums influenced other bands to compose and perform similar kinds of music, among which the most notable are Era and Gregorian. Their songs have also featured in TV shows and movies, such as in La Femme Nikita, Charlie’s Angels, and The Matrix movie trailer. Their song “Return to Innocence” is one of the most popular ones of Enigma, and has appeared in Virgin Atlantic advertising as well as several other TV commercials worldwide.
http://www.vagmusic.com/articles/Genres_7758.html Wed, 12 Apr 2006 03:27:21 CST Robert Rich is an American composer and musician of ambient music based in California, USA. As a young child, Robert thought he didn’t like music, yet when he turned 12 he adopted the hobby of growing succulents and he would tune the radio to static at low volume and leave it turned on for the plants. This practice made him catch interest in avant-garde music styles. When Robert was in fifth grade, he began playing the viola, but Robert wasn’t very comfortable reading musical notation and thus he quit the instrument and started experimenting with several objects and instruments to reproduce unique sounds. In 1976, when he was 13 years old, Robert built his own synthesizer and adopted thereafter several influences from various musicians such as John Cage, Terry Riley, Cluster, and Klaus Schulze. Three years later, Robert started working with Rick Davies, a musician with whom he created experimental music inspired by art rock and avant-garde sounds.

Throughout his career, Robert Rich has released more than 35 albums. His first record on CD was Numena, an album in which Robert explored new complex rhythms, acoustic instrumentations and just intonation. In his following albums, there is an evident electronic influence. Robert Rich has also featured in the works of other musicians such as Steve Roach, Ian Boddy, Lisa Moskow, Alio Die, and Brian Lustmord.
http://www.vagmusic.com/articles/Genres_7754.html Wed, 12 Apr 2006 03:04:09 CST Ottmar Liebert is a German guitarist, composer and performer of a particular music style called Nouveau Flamenco. The Nouveau Flamenco is a music genre that combines elements of flamenco with other styles of music, especially jazz and bossa nova. His music is often difficult to categorize and is frequently found under the New Age or World Music genre.

Ottmar Liebert is a creative thinker and doer; he has been nominated for the Grammy awards and traveled throughout Europe and Asia finding elements of those traditions to include in his music. Together with his band, Luna Negra, Ottmar has recorded several albums, although the members of the band keep changing constantly except for Ottmar himself and Jon Gagan, the bassist. Since 1990, Ottmar has recorded a total of 23 albums, which include live releases, Christmas albums, and a DVD. Ottmar has also collaborated in works of other artists such as Leda Battisti, James Bobchak, and Jon Gagan. In 1999, Ottmar also produced an album for the band Chuscales, “Soul Encounters / Encuentros Del Alma”.

Nouveau Flamenco, Ottmar Liebert’s debut album sold double-platinum and is one of the best-selling guitar albums. Listeners of Ottmar’s works include hardcore guitarists as well as guitar fans, instrumental music fans, and admirers of his particular and inspiring sound.
http://www.vagmusic.com/articles/Genres_7736.html Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:08:12 CST Enya is the pseudonym of Eithne Ni Bhraonain, an Irish New Age music singer born in the county of Donegal. Belonging to a family of musicians, in 1982 Enya joined Nicky and Ryan with the intention of composing movie scores: their first important work was for the Birtish documentary “The Celts”. Enya’s success came with their album Watermark, which set the basic scheme that all subsequent albums would follow.

Many of the songs by Enya have lyrics that mix English with other languages. Enya utilizes many different languages in their songs, with pieces entirely sung in Irish or Latin, and others including Welsh, Esperanto, Spanish, French, Japanese, and many others. One of the most interesting characteristics of the music of Enya is that they write songs in fantasy languages, such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s Quenya and Sindarin (both languages spoken by the mythical elves) as well as in Loxian, a language invented by Roma Ryan.

Some of Enya’s songs are inspired and have featured in the movies of The Lord of the Rings, such as Lothlorien, May It Be, Aníron. The song “May It Be” was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Song category for the 2002 ceremonies.
http://www.vagmusic.com/articles/Genres_7697.html Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:56:13 CST Dead Can Dance is a music band whose members are Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. Formed in Melbourne in 1981 and originally established in Australia, the members of the band separated temporarily in 1981 and reunited for a tour through Europe and North America (Canada, the United States and Mexico) in 2005.

Due to the poor potential for success in Australia, Dead Can Dance traveled to London and after a year they signed to the legendary alternative rock label 4AD. Soon thereafter, the band achieved great success and became one of the most important bands of the label. Both members of the band worked closely together until 1990 when Perry moved to Ireland while Gerrard returned to Australia. This didn’t break up the band, and Perry assures that the distance helps keeping an individual freedom in creativity.

Dead Can Dance has a very eclectic style of music. Although their first albums could be considered gothic rock, their later songs include world music from ancient and foreign places together with singing of seemingly meaningless syllables (or perhaps utterances of an unknown mystical language). Consequently, their work after The Serpent’s Egg is quite different from the first three albums. Some of the genres associated with Dead Can Dance are New Age, Ethereal Goth, and Dark World Music.
http://www.vagmusic.com/articles/Genres_7674.html Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:30:26 CST Yanni Chrysomallis is a Greek musician born in Kalamata on November 19th, 1954. Since he was a child, Chrysomallis played the piano, although he never took lessons for that instrument, playing popular songs in his free time. He lived in Greece until turning 14, and when he was 18 years old, Chrysomallis had already settled in the United States.

The music of Yanni Chrysomallis is instrumental with influences of New Age. The notes released by Chrysomallis’ keyboard are emotional, a characteristic that has greatly contributed to his success. Chrysomallis is also very creative when it comes to composing romantic ballads. His commercial success began in 1993 with the release of Live at the Acropolis, Chrysomallis’ first live album and video, filmed at the Herodian Amphitheater in Athens. This album featured a full orchestra under the supervision of conductor Shardad Rohani, the Royal London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Yanni Chrysomallis’ songs have been featured in television scores, tournaments, plays, and even in the Olympic Games. CBS Sports and NBC Sports use songs by Yanni Chrysomallis for their telecasts. In addition, “Once upon a Time”, another piece composed by him is used by Hong Kong’s TVB for their weather forecast. Other pieces have been used in several sports events, such as “Acroyali / Standing in Motion”, a song used in the pregame lightshows of the hockey team the New Jersey Devils.
http://www.vagmusic.com/articles/Genres_7577.html Mon, 10 Apr 2006 03:21:34 CST Delerium is a New Age music band from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The band was formed in 1987 originally as a side plan of Front Line Assembly, an influential industrial music act. However, the musical style of Delerium has changed with their history, and their music has been in contact with a broad range of musical spheres, from electronic pop music to voiceless industrial soundscapes and dark ethereal ambient.

Delerium’s most popular album is certainly Karma, and most people only know the work of Delerium under the Nettwerk label, because prior to the release of their album Semantic Spaces, the band was barely known in the pop-music scene. The huge commercial success of Delerium is due mainly to “Silence”, a single that originally appeared in the album Karma, and which had thereafter many remixes that flooded the dance clubs, including several produced by DJ Tiesto, Fade, and Airscape. The song features vocals by Sarah McLachlan, which made the single climb up to the third place of the UK charts and gain significant radio airplay.

Up to this day, Delerium has released 15 albums, 12 singles, and 6 compilations. In addition, the band’s work is found in several third-party compilations and a good number of remixes. http://www.vagmusic.com/articles/Genres_7551.html Mon, 10 Apr 2006 02:56:41 CST Evangelos Odyssey Papathanassiou, best known as Vangelis, is a famous Greek composer of new age and electronic music born in March 29, 1943. His most famous works have been the score for the movie Chariots of Fire (winner of the Academy award for the best movie score in 1981) and the original soundtrack for the movie Blade Runner, music for Cosmos, produced for television by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, as well as for 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992). He also composed the anthem for the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea-Japan.

The music of Vangelis is distinguished for the particular use of synthesizers and keyboards that fuse together to create captivating spheres of sound full of content. Vangelis was one of the first owners of a synthesizer in Greece. His first steps in the world of music were in the group The Forminx. Later, he played in a band called Aphrodite’s Child with Demis Roussos, Silver Koulouris, and Lucas Sideras. They were very successful in Europe and recorded three albums. After building controversy, the group dissolved and Vangelis started his solo career with the release of two albums: Hypothesis and The Dragon.

In addition to his albums, Vangelis has collaborated with many artists such as Vanessa Mae and Jon Anderson of the band Yes, and has composed many scores of independent movies and documentaries.
http://www.vagmusic.com/articles/Genres_7568.html Mon, 10 Apr 2006 02:49:55 CST Acoustic Alchemy is a British band with a contemporary instrumental and smooth jazz sound. The band was formed in England in the early 1980s by Nick Webb and Simon James, both acoustic guitarists. Since that year, the band has evolved and incorporated sounds enhancing their music up to this day.

Simon James and Nick Webb were pioneers in this genre in the UK, for which there was a little appreciative audience who only knew American players. Acoustic Alchemy’s nylon and steel sounds were an immediate success, and the band also incorporated a double bass, percussion and sometimes string quartet The Violettes. James left the band in the mid 1980s, however, the band kept on going, and soon a successor was found. He was Greg Carmichael, and together with Webb, they started working as an in-flight band on Virgin Atlantic flights, and quickly signed to MCA for their first album called “Red Dust and Spanish Lace”, which was a total success. “Mr. Chow”, Acoustic Alchemy’s first single from the album, integrated traditional Chinese music elements with reggae.

Today, the band has released 15 albums. Their latest one, “American/English” explores a wide range of different genres. The current members of Acoustic Alchemy are Anthony White, Miles Gilderdale, Gref Carmichael, Eddie M, and Frank Felix.