This profile is maintained by Al Conti's management at Shadowside Music. For publicity, please contact Kevin Manion at [email protected]
Al Conti 'Quest for Orpheus'
from the album POETA
wins 'Best of 2007' Award!
• • • •
"Be still my heart. From the first track of Poeta by artist Al Conti, I was transported, swept away and totally enchanted."
--Cherie Lassiter - Innerchange
"It (POETA) is, indeed, a lovely and personable CD with music for everyone to enjoy."
--Sue Few - KRBS Radio
"Al's created an amazing musical experience on this CD."
--Pete Havey - Mystic Soundscapes Radio
"...Dig in to the feast. This is delicious peaceful music that would be at home as a meditation accompaniment as well as a soundtrack."
--RadioMike
Al Conti is a recipient of two ASCAP Awards for his work. His album Poeta was used as part of NPR's fundraising efforts in 2007 and his recording Quest for Orpheus, from the same album, received a “Best of 2007†Award from Mystic Soundscapes Radio. The album Poeta entered the New Age Reporter Top 100 Charts at number 44 in July, 2007, headed the top 10 of 2007 list at KCCK Radio at number 2, and was a featured selection at WMNR Radio throughout Connecticut in April, 2008.
A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Al has appeared in many theatre productions as well as television commercials and shows such as CBS' daytime drama 'As The World Turns.' Al began seriously working on music 17 years ago, but it was not until after he had a near death experience that he undertook music full time.
Al comes from a family of deeply talented individuals. His grandfather was a concert pianist while Al's mother was a ballerina and his father a professor and poet. His extended family includes the late 1800's Argentinean famed writer Miguél Cané. As a result, Al has been surrounded by an eclectic blend of music, literature and art since he was very young.
In the past, Al has also worked for several years with Ohmegasongs Productions in Germany, as a lyric writer, arranger and composer. While Al's music is mostly New Age/Ambient and instrumental, he has composed works for and with lyrics.
Since the release of Al's debut CD 'Shadows,' music has taken over and has become his sole work. Through deep reflection and an awareness of the world around him, Al transfers emotions and images into music that soothes the soul.
Al currently divides his time between New York City and Vermont. However, he finds himself drawn back to the peaceful mountains and green forests of Vermont, his true home and a place he deeply loves.
While Al's debut album 'Shadows' took us on a journey searching within one's own deepest self, POETA invites the listener on a different journey, exploring a landscape of emotions woven by the poetry of music through eleven magical tracks.
Travel through musical valleys and peaks to discover Orpheus and his unrelenting quest to retrieve his lost love in the haunting opening track 'Quest for Orpheus.' Dream along with the tales of Homer's 'Iliad.' Find yourself wishing for 'Evangeline,' the young Victorian maiden, to find true love as she sits by the sea, day after day with her book of poems. And then find that true love in the movement of 'Danzante' and the power of 'Abstract Desire.' Feel the quill of 'Poeta' inspire the world through a tapestry of enchantment. And, as every book must end, feel yourself transported with the final rendering 'Epilogos' and its timeless prayer.
From the first note to the last, Al Conti's album features ethnic instruments such as the hurdy gurdy, udu, sitar and tablas as well as classical violins and cellos, haunting ambient vocals and beautiful guitar solos. Listeners who loved Al's debut CD eagerly awaited his second release and reviewers have praised Al's work as "individual," "intricate," and expressing a "lovely humanity and positive spirit."
The concept of poetry in music came to Al unexpectedly, inspired by Spain's late poet Ramón Sampedro, who lived as a quadriplegic and fought for the right to end his own life. During his life he wrote using only his mouth and a pencil attached to a stick. Al's reaction to the poet's journey was intense: "Ramón's words touched me so much that they catapulted what has now become an entire work on its own. It has always amazed me how music has its own poetry and I want to express that in my work."
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