25 Facts About Andreas Vollenweider

Andreas Vollenweider was born on 4 October 1953 and is a Swiss harpist.

Andreas Vollenweider is generally categorised as a new-age musician and uses a modified electroacoustic harp of his own design.

Andreas Vollenweider has worked with Bobby McFerrin, Carly Simon, Luciano Pavarotti and in 1987 received a Grammy Award for the album Down to the Moon.

Andreas Vollenweider was born on 4 October 1953 in Zurich, Switzerland, and is the son of Hans Andreas Vollenweider, an organist and composer, while his mother was a painter.

In 1975, Andreas 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.

Andreas Vollenweider formed the trio Poesie und Musik together with Rene Bardet and Orlando Valentini, recording interpretations of the poetry of Francois Villon and Heinrich Heine, but left in 1978.

Andreas Vollenweider subsequently began forming his ensemble "Andreas Vollenweider and Friends", which included Walter Keiser, Pedro Haldemann, Bobby Reveron, and Jon Otis.

Andreas 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.

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 Andreas Vollenweider directed and produced himself.

Andreas Vollenweider 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".

Andreas Vollenweider spent much of 1985 on tour, promoting the White Winds album with his five-piece band.

When he composed the music of, and recorded, the dynamic album Dancing With The Lion in 1988 and 1989, Andreas Vollenweider opened his project, for the first time in his career, to numerous guests from a wide range of musical genres.

In 1998, Andreas Vollenweider began the recording of Kryptos, a work for symphonic orchestras and guest virtuosos from all over the world.

Andreas Vollenweider initiated a symphonic live project which he called Wolkenstein.

In 2001, Andreas Vollenweider performed in Bali at the international conference "song of convergence" with Balinese musicians.

Andreas Vollenweider began writing the "symphonic novel" Tales of Kira Kutan, which premiered at the Warsaw Film Music Festival 2001, with the orchestra Sinfonia Varsowia, conducted by co-orchestrator Andre Bellmont.

Andreas Vollenweider played for the Dalai Lama, when the latter paid a visit in Zurich.

At that time, he released his first DVD, The Magical Journeys of Andreas Vollenweider, which contained almost four hours of live concerts, documentaries, interviews.

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

In 2010, Andreas Vollenweider gave concerts in Eastern and Western Europe.

In May 2012 Andreas Vollenweider lends his name to a campaign by ROKPA, a charity he has been working with for decades.

The neural networks of premature babies who heard Andreas 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".

Andreas Vollenweider's 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".

Andreas Vollenweider is perceived as one of the pioneers of the New Age genre, although his earlier recordings appeared on the Billboard jazz chart.

Andreas Vollenweider is an outspoken pacifist and follower of the principles of non-violent conflict management of Mahatma Gandhi.