Posts Tagged ‘Kitaro’

On Friday June 11 Kitaro will perform at the Harmony Festival on the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, California.  He will perform together with Grand Master Tanaka & Dennis Banks. Here is a presentation of Grand Master Tanaka:

Grand Master Tanaka has been honored by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs with its prestigious Foreign Ministers Commendation which recognizes his significant efforts in promoting the Japanese art of Taiko drumming.  In 2001, he was named a National Heritage Fellow by the United States National Endowment for the Arts, widely recognized as one of America’s highest honors in folk and traditional arts.. Master Tanaka explains, “The essence of Taiko is not only skillful playing of percussive instruments, but also discipline of mind and body in the spirit of complete respect and unity among drummers.”

Dennis Banks:

Ojibwa Native DENNIS J. BANKS is one of the founders of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and has spent much of his life protecting the traditional ways of Indian people and engaging in legal cases protecting treaty rights of Native Americans.

Read more and book your tickets here.

On Domo Music Group’s newsblog you can see pictures from Kitaro’s recent concert in Singapore. And a 13 seconds long video (!!!) has also been posted… I guess you have to be a diehard fan to enjoy that one.

But if you want a somewhat longer video of Kitaro’s new live material, take a look at this one.

Singapore magazine Todayonline.com has an interview with Kitaro entitled simply New Age Dude. Which is an ok title, since he is the Asian New Age Dude. In this interview you get to know things about Kitaro you probably didn’t know.

Although he’s best known as a musician, Kitaro is involved with many spheres outside of music. For instance, he has a fireworks group which performs at festivals in Japan.

“We use the traditional bamboo fireworks,” he said, adding that they carry them like upright bazookas. “It’s very dangerous and my wife and managers have told me not to do that. But I like to do that. It’s a man thing.”

Let’s hope he doesn’t blow up!

Read the interview here. There are 4 nice pictures of Kitaro too.

Some quick notes on the Grammy Awards now before we move on to new music; On the Domo Music homepage you can see Kitaro’s pictures from the awards ceremony. He didn’t win though – but it looks like he still had a good time. There is also a very noisy Grammy Pre Party video available.  And, if you didn’t get to see the show – you can see it in its entirety on Grammy.com. The new age music part is from 59 minutes onwards – or you can listen to an audio version just by visiting David Darling’s homepage.

And, while we are talking about the Grammy Award, check out Peter Kater’s blog about how he felt about being nominated for the sixth time.

In celebration of Kitaro’s many Grammy nominations, Domo Music Group has just released an album called Grammy nominated music by Kitaro. It is a 13 track long compilation that includes songs like “Estrella”, a track from Kitaro’s Grammy winning album, Thinking Of You as well as “Spirit Of The West Lake”, a track from his most recently Grammy Nominated album, Impressions Of The West Lake (which of course was included on our 2009 Best New Age Music album list)

Through the course of his career, Kitaro has sold millions of albums, CD’s and DVD’s worldwide. Kitaro‘s various sound collaborations and resonant, multi-textured compositions, with their crescendos of passion and oases of serenity, truly defy the constraints of any genre. His pioneering fusion of cultures, techniques and spheres of consciousness is truly his own.

Time will show if Kitaro wins a Grammy this year – but it is nevertheless a great compilation.

See the track listing here. The album is also available on iTunes.

Kitaro is a major artist indeed, and not only in new age music. He has been Grammy nominated 13 times – included here is the nomination of his latest release, Impressions Of The West Lake.

Kitaro’s label, Domo Records, presents a very special gift box for this holiday season for the most eager Kitaro fan. This CD package, signed by Kitaro, includes 13 albums with booklets from each album (please note that the album does not come with jewel cases).

Albums:
Impressions Of The West Lake
Sacred Journey of Kukai Volume 3
Sacred Journey of Kukai Volume 2
Sacred Journey of Kukai Volume 1
An Ancient Journey
Ancient
Thinking of You (Winner)
Gaia Onbashira
An Enchanted Evening
Mandala
Dream
Kojiki
Light of the Spirit

See here for information – and enjoy the video below.

One of the great things with the new digital distribution channel is that artists and labels can publish big, exclusive collections (which can contain both music and videos) ready for instant download – sometimes for a cheaper price. In the past big collections was for the most eager fans only.

One such digital collection is Kitaro Digital Box Set which is now out from Domo Music Group. Here you get 40 songs at 320kbps MP3 and 1 live video too (“Koi” from Kojiki: A Story of Concert DVD). It is a massive 4 disc collection (files delivered in zip compressed folder), which contains songs from Kitaro’s long and productive career.

At the moment it is only available from Domo Music Group.

This is not an offer you’ll get every day; the possibility to buy a bottle of exclusive wine signed by a major new age music artist! The wine is called Kitaro “Impressions” 2007 Maboroshi Pinot Noir.

Here is a description of the wine from the vineyard:

Due to debut in September along with Kitaro’s newest album “Impressions of West Lake” ; a musical interpretation inspired by the ethereal Opera on Water performances at China’s West Lake, this hand selected barrel blend is a classical Pinot Noir with elegant aromas and tastes expressive of the native “terroir”. The art for the label is the same as his newest cd jacket of the performers dancing as if on top of the water itself. Quantities are extremely limited as each bottle is personally signed by Kitaro.

And more:

The story began nearly 14 or 15 years ago, while touring another custom crush winery (where Tom was employed prior to beginning the Maboroshi brand), Kitaro coincidentally met Tom. Talks of making a “Kitaro” wine at that time fell through. However, several years later, after Kitaro moved from his home deep in the Colorado mountains to Northern California’s Sebastopol, they would meet by chance again and the idea of making wine together became a reality.

Read more here – and order your signed bottle of wine, with that unforgettable new age taste Very creative indeed, don’t you think?

Here is our presentation of Kitaro’s new album.

One of this year’s major new age music titles has been released: Kitaro’s Impressions Of The West Lake. And this is not just an album, but also a DVD directed by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yimou. He’s biggest project to date was the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

On this album Kitaro also worked closely with music arranger Randy Miller. This is Kitaro and Miller’s first effort together since the Golden Globe-winning soundtrack to Oliver Stone’s 1993 film Heaven and Earth. The show’s soundtrack also features rising Chinese pop star Jane Zhang, a gifted young performer who provides stunning vocals to the production on the title track.

So yes, Impressions Of The West Lake is a major release indeed! To give you a feel of just how amazing this album is, Kitaro’s label is giving away a free zip-file containing a music video and three songs from the album! I don’t know how long this free offer will last, so head over to the label, Domo.com (click the download button to the right), and get your free sample! It is such a massive production, that puts anything produced in the West in a shadow.

You can sample the complete album on CDBaby.

The pre-sale of tickets to Kitaro’s Love & Peace Planet Music Tour 2009 in Japan is now underway. Below are the tour dates and locations. Click the picture to get tickets (Japanese only).

With a title like the one above I guess this collection of songs by various Asian new age artists had to get a lot of attention – and it worked!

The Most Relaxing New Age Music In the Universe has been on the bestseller lists since Denon Classics released in January 2005, as a part of their Most Relaxing series (which also have opera, classical, jazz piano ect. in the catalogue). The series has sold over 800,000 copies in the U.S. alone, and the new age edition is perhaps the most successful compilation in store today.

This new age collection consists of 2 discs with songs by Kitaro, Mari Fujiwara, Hideo Shimazu and others. I like this collection for its focus on more classical sounding new age music. But rest assure fans of electronic music; there are some ambient synth songs here as well – like the opening track, Kitaro’s classical Message from the Cosmos.

Is it the most relaxing new age music in the universe? Well, I’ll let you decide. But is a more classical approach to new age than we are used to.

Sample all the tracks on Amazon or any other digital music outlet.

Kitaro is one of the stars which will perform on the annual Harmony Festival at Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa, California on June 12 – 14. Kitaro will be part of the Harmony Hall lineup. There is also a dedicated Techno Tribal lineup and an Eco Cup Stage. The festival homepage gives this description:

Kitaro’s style is the epitome of the contemplative, highly melodic synthesizer music often associated with the new-age movement. He has been nominated several times for a Grammy in the New Age category. In 1994 he won the Golden Globe for his Heaven & Earth soundtrack for Oliver Stone’s movie “Heaven & Earth”.

30.000+ guests are expected and the festival promises a stellar lineup, 300+ vendors and multiple stages. Read about it here.

Who said that a new age artist couldn’t perform at a regluar music festival? Not me!