ANDREAS VOLLENWEIDER & FRIENDS - "POLYHYMNIA"
The Update:
During the time when cultural activists around the world were forced to a standstill, Andreas Vollenweider was very creative. This includes the album QUIET PLACES as well as Andreas' first novel "Reflections of Venus". A new band and a concert program have been put together and all was ready when Corona hit. Now we are over the moon to see some concert dates at the end of the tunnel. The new concert program title: POLYHYMNIA
The experience:
For newcomers: forget everything you ever knew and thought about the harp! Vollenweider has created his own instrument, his own style, his own unmistakable musical vocabulary, the music world agrees.
The New York Times wrote: "Vollenweider's music is like the folk music of a mysterious tribe of an unknown country on a continent not yet discovered."
Even after 40 years, this unique music is able to inspire people all over the world: more than 15 million records were sold, a Grammy Award and 4 nominations, 18 albums, international concert activities in the most prestigious auditoriums on Mother Earth: New York's Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, LA Universal Amphitheatre, London Palladium, Tokyo NHK, Sydney Town Hall, Moscow Red Square...
But don't expect a conventional and boring harp recital! What you will hear is more of the sound world between chamber music and a rock concert.
The actors:
Andreas Vollenweider's instrument is able to fill even the largest halls with ease with its powerful sound; ultra-deep basses, hypnotic grooves, crystal clear, melodious, haunting. His four musical companions are dancing in these sound spaces.
Walter Keiser, drummer since the first hour and heartbeat of this music. The spectrum of his playing ranges from subtle, finely woven to spiritedly furious. Even in airy, flying passages, he always keeps the connection to the ground.
Isabel Gehweiler is a young cellist, whose playing is able to touch in a most intense way. She, too, goes beyond the typical tonal and dynamic framework of her instrument, leaving the question again and again: does she really play this music on a cello?
Daniel Kuffer, at home in this music for almost 20 years. The multi-instrumentalist conjures with an almost inexhaustible wealth of sound colors; saxophones, clarinets, flutes, accordion, keyboards...
Sorin Spasinovici, whatever he touches, it becomes music. But his heart's instrument is the viola. The musical diversity of his homeland Romania is evident in his playing: energetic virtuosity and soulful melodies.
Vollenweider says: "This formation allows us a lot of freedom, we can let ourselves drift and follow the music as it creates itself at every moment."
The music:
It is truly a musical world of its own; melodic, touching, intimate, emotional, reconciliatory, uncompromisingly free, fascinatingly unfamiliar, ranging from feather-light to stirring virtuosity, soothing and powerful all at once.
More than ever before, it also invites us to take an inward journey, to pause and reflect in order to gather new strength. This is exactly what this music became world-famous for.
Let yourself be enchanted by the unique picturesque scenery, which is perfect for the music of Andreas Vollenweider & Friends 2022!
