= Book_of_Roses =

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= Book_of_Roses =
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Introduction
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Andreas Vollenweider (born 4 October 1953) is a Swiss harpist. He is
generally categorised as a new-age musician and uses a modified
electroacoustic harp of his own design. He has worked with Bobby
McFerrin, Carly Simon, Luciano Pavarotti and in 1987 received a Grammy
Award for the album 'Down to the Moon'. Vollenweider's style has been
described by 'The New York Times' as "swirling atmospheric music,
which evokes nature, magic and fairy tales".

Early life
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Vollenweider was born on 4 October 1953 in Zürich, Switzerland, and is
the son of Hans Vollenweider (1918-1993), an organist and composer,
while his mother was a painter. In 1971, he married Beata, a
kindergarten teacher, with whom he has two sons (Jonathan and
Sebastian) and a daughter, Noëmi. In 1975, Vollenweider discovered the
harp and, finding its traditional versions too limited for his own
musical ideas, developed his own style, tailoring the instrument
according to his needs. He created the electro-acoustic harp. He
formed the trio 'Poesie und Musik' together with Rene Bardet (bass)
and Orlando Valentini (guitar), recording interpretations of the
poetry of François Villon and Heinrich Heine, but left in 1978. During
this period, Vollenweider also wrote music for film, mainly nature
documentaries.

1980s
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In 1979, he released his solo debut, 'Eine Art Suite in XIII Teilen'
in Switzerland. He subsequently began forming his ensemble "Andreas
Vollenweider and Friends", which included Walter Keiser (drums), Pedro
Haldemann (percussion), Bobby Reveron (percussion), and Jon Otis
(percussion). This five-piece debuted on July 11, 1981, at the
Montreux Jazz Festival. Vollenweider was discovered by the German
record-producer and manager Vera Brandes, who oversaw the release of
'Behind the Gardens - Behind the Wall - Under the Tree...'. through
her VeraBra Records. The album was distributed through CBS Records
International and reached 32 in the German album charts in March 1982.
The follow-up 'Caverna Magica' was recorded in the period May-November
1982 while Vollenweider and his band performed around Europe. Released
in January 1983, the album managed to reach 11 in the German album
chart. In 1983, he underlined his commitment to environmental issues
with the EP "Pace Verde" in support for Greenpeace, which was
accompanied by a video that Vollenweider directed and produced
himself. In October of that year he was awarded a Dutch Edison Award
in the 'Instrumental' category for 'Caverna Magica'.

In 1984, the album 'White Winds' entered the American billboard chart.
Released through CBS Masterworks in North America, his records
remained on catalogue, clocking up to six-figure sales. Vollenweider
embarked on his first American tour in November of that year, making
his debut at the Beacon Theatre, New York.
It was presented by Carly Simon who had come across his music a year
earlier. She explained that "I knew I had discovered something that
was going to change me in a wonderful way, I became so obsessed with
his music that anyone who came to my house was introduced to it within
the first 10 or 15 minutes". Through CBS she got in contact with the
artist and arranged for his American debut. As his instrumental tracks
were generally deemed unsuitable for radio, he largely relied on
word-of-mouth in gathering an international following.

Vollenweider spent much of 1985 on tour, promoting the 'White Winds'
album with his five-piece band. The shows were described as a new age
experience that combined the use of lights and dry ice while
Vollenweider appeared as a "white-clad figure who's poised to drive
the audience wild with a harp". In 1987, 'Down To The Moon', which had
been originally recorded and released in 1984, received a Grammy
Award. This was followed by tours in Canada, the United States,
thirteen European countries, Japan, and Australia. When he composed
the music of, and recorded, the dynamic album 'Dancing With The Lion'
in 1988 and 1989, Vollenweider opened his project, for the first time
in his career, to numerous guests from a wide range of musical genres.
He directed and produced two award-winning videos, one of which was
for the title selection; for both videos, he contributed to the
storyline, the choreography, and set/costume designs.

1990s
=======
Vollenweider's double album 'The Trilogy' (1990), consisted of a
selection of the first three albums ('Behind The Gardens', 'Caverna
Magica', and 'White Winds') and previously unreleased material. In
1991, he followed up with 'Book of Roses', which included symphonic
orchestral elements for the first time. In 1992, he participated in a
benefit show for Chernobyl's children on Moscow's Red Square. The same
year, he won the World Music Award in Monaco. In 1993-94, he produced
his first album including vocals. The 1993-94 album 'Eolian Minstrel'
featured contributions from American singers Carly Simon and Eliza
Gilkyson. The release was followed by worldwide tours.

In 1994, he performed at the Pavarotti and Friends event in Modena,
Italy, where he played duets with operatic lyric tenor Luciano
Pavarotti (a native of Modena) and Canadian rock balladeer Bryan
Adams. After conducting tours and open-air shows in Europe and the
United States, in 1995 he played in Latin America for the first time.
1995-97 saw Vollenweider playing a series of shows in remarkable
locations: a tour of Polish castles, a show with Italian
singer/songwriter Zucchero at the 2500 m high location (at -8°C) of
Brunico in the Southern Alps, and in a giant volcanic cave at
Lanzarote's Festival Musica Visual.

In 1998, Vollenweider began the recording of 'Kryptos,' a work for
symphonic orchestras and guest virtuosos from all over the world. He
initiated a symphonic live project which he called 'Wolkenstein'. In
1999, he returned to free improvisation and intimate musical dialogues
with his album 'COSMOPOLY' He invited friends, including American
vocal acrobat Bobby McFerrin, Brazilian cult poet and singer Milton
Nascimento, South-African ethno-jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, the
74-year-old Armenian duduk legend Djivan Gasparyan, Galician bag-pipe
and whistle virtuoso Carlos Núñez Muñoz, the American
singer-songwriter Carly Simon, and American blues-trombone master Ray
Anderson, from all over the globe to create "world music".

2000s
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Throughout 2000, he traveled with the 'COSMOPOLY' project in Europe.
Its changing configuration of musicians -- almost daily -- enabled
Vollenweider to follow the open concept of the album. In New York
City, he and his friends played two concerts for the United States
release. Carly Simon joined the group, as did Mindy Jostyn, Carlos
Núñez, Djivan Gasparyan, XiaoJing Wang and Walter Keiser. Concerts in
Brazil -- with Milton Nascimento and composer/pianist Wagner Tiso --
followed. In 2001, Vollenweider performed in Bali (Indonesia) at the
international conference "song of convergence" with Balinese
musicians. He began writing the "symphonic novel" 'Tales of Kira
Kutan', which premiered at the Warsaw Film Music Festival 2001, with
the orchestra Sinfonia Varsowia (Yehudi Menuhin), conducted by
co-orchestrator André Bellmont. Returning to his native Switzerland,
Vollenweider premiered 'Carte blanche' at the AVO Festival in Basel,
where his guests, in addition to a mini orchestra, included Abdullah
Ibrahim and David Lindley.

In 2002, he performed at the Budapest Spring Festival in Hungary.
Performances of the symphonies 'Tales of Kira Kutan' and 'Wolkenstein'
at the Festival "Live at Sunset" in Zürich, with Sinfonia Varsovia,
followed, as did a European summer tour, with the newly formed
AVAF-mini orchestra, that included a performance at the "Big Chill
Festival" in England and continued that fall. It was around this time
that he collaborated with German film composer Hans Zimmer, in Los
Angeles, on the music score for the movie 'Tears of the Sun' (starring
Bruce Willis and Monica Bellucci). In 2003, he continued his work with
Zimmer. A performance followed, with his mini orchestra, in
Johannesburg and at the "North Sea Festival" in Cape Town.

In 2004 and 2005, AVAF continued to increase touring activities in
Europe. At this time, Vollenweider's entire catalogue was re-mastered
and re-released on new record labels worldwide (USA/Canada:
www.kinkoumusic.com; international: www.edel.com). A compilation, 'The
Best of "Magic Harp', was released in the United States and Canada,
and 'The Storyteller' was released in Europe. A four-hour DVD was also
produced. He played for the Dalai Lama, when the latter paid a visit
in Zürich. In 2005, he released the album 'VOX'.

In the first three months of 2006, following extensive touring in
Europe, Vollenweider conducted his first tour of the US in over ten
years, touring from coast to coast. At that time, he also released his
first DVD, 'The Magical Journeys of Andreas Vollenweider', which
contained almost four hours of live concerts, documentaries,
interviews. During the summer of that year, he recorded a new album,
titled 'Midnight Clear', in which he again collaborated with Carly
Simon. (See above for his previous collaborations with her.) The last
three months of 2006 saw Vollenweider touring in Europe, in addition
to his release of 'Midnight Clear' on a worldwide basis and that of
the DVD 'The Magical Journeys of Andreas Vollenweider' in the rest of
the world. 2007 saw Vollenweider draw his third nomination for a
Grammy Award for the soundtrack album of the current DVD release 'The
Magical Journeys of Andreas Vollenweider'. Concerts in Europe and the
United States followed, as did, in September of that year, the release
of the two-CD double album 'Andreas Vollenweider & Friends - 25
Years Live', which covered the period from 1982 to 2007.

In 2008, during his composition of the music for, and his recording
of, the album 'A I R', Vollenweider was a guest performer at the
celebration concert for the 80th birthday of Armenian duduk legend
Jivan Gasparyan.

2010s
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In 2010, Vollenweider gave concerts in Eastern and Western Europe. In
June, he undertook a special concert project, which he titled 'The
Watercourse Way,' at the Shanghai Centre in Shanghai, China, as part
of Expo 2010. A "Dream Concert" of the extended AVAF followed in
August, as did the "Dancing With The Lion Orchestra" concert on the
shore of Lake Zurich; it featured a gathering of Vollenweider's
musical friends from all corners of the world. In 2011, three decades
after his first concert, he accepted the invitation of Montreux Jazz
Festival founder Claude Nobs to perform an exclusive jubilee concert,
on 7 July, at the 45th such Festival, titled "30 Years Andreas
Vollenweider & Friends". It featured special guests Richard Bona
and Raul Midon.

In 2012, he played at the farewell concert for Claude Nobs, who had
died in January of that year. In the same year Vollenweider was
granted the Swiss Music Award for "Outstanding Achievement Award" for
his continuing life's work. On Christmas Eve, Swiss Television
broadcasts the first major documentary devoted to Vollenweider, in
which filmmaker Cristina Karrer shows impressing and touching
sequences recorded in October 2010 in South Africa. In May 2012
Andreas Vollenweider lends his name to a campaign by ROKPA, a charity
he has been working with for decades. Children who had once lived on
the streets in Kathmandu, Nepal, visit eight Swiss cities to tell
their moving stories using theatre, dance and music, with a changing
roster of Swiss musical guests and an equally celebrated line-up of TV
moderators.

For a scientific study conducted between 2013 and 2016 by researchers
at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the University Hospitals of
Geneva (HUG) in Switzerland, Vollenweider wrote music that was
specifically designed to improve the neural development of premature
babies. The composer wrote three sound environments of eight minutes
each, with punji, harp and bells pieces. The neural networks of
premature babies who heard Vollenweider's music were significantly
improved, becoming more similar to those of full-term newborns,
"providing evidence for a beneficial effect of music on the preterm
brain".

Style
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His style has been described as weaving "elements of European
classical and folk music, Third World vocal and percussive effects and
natural sound effects into cyclical suites". Vollenweider is perceived
as one of the pioneers of the New Age genre, although his earlier
recordings appeared on the 'Billboard' jazz chart. The composer found
that "what I am doing is really a very old thing, a very 'old age'
thing, because I'm doing what people have been doing for thousands of
years".

Activism
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In the 1980s, Vollenweider was described as someone whose "politics
run to the left, including support for Amnesty International and
Greenpeace". He is an outspoken pacifist and follower of the
principles of non-violent conflict management of Mahatma Gandhi.

Discography
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* 'Eine Art Suite In XIII Teilen' (Tages-Anzeiger 1979)
* 'Behind the Gardens' (CBS, 1981)
* 'Caverna Magica' (Columbia, 1982)
* 'White Winds' (Columbia, 1984) - AUS #96
* 'Down to the Moon' (CBS, 1986) - AUS #67
* 'Dancing with the Lion' (Columbia, 1989)
* 'Traumgarten' (Columbia, 1990)
* 'Book of Roses' (Columbia, 1991)
* 'Eolian Minstrel' (Columbia, 1993)
* 'Kryptos' (Sony, 1997)
* 'Cosmopoly' (Sony, 1999)
* 'Vox' (Universal, 2004)
* 'Midnight Clear' (Content, 2006)
* 'Air' (Content, 2009)
* 'Quiet Places' (AVAF-Music, 2020)
* 'Slow Flow / Dancer' (AVAF-Music, 2022)

Gallery
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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Roses