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Testimonials for SYMPHONY FOR HUMANITY
“Paul Lloyd Warner is without question one of the great musical artists of our generation. He towers over his so called "new age" contemporaries and brings us a depth of passion, delivered with classicism, originality, poetry and grace. I am privileged to have heard him in one of his rare concerts and am honored to have experienced the beauty of his music in his recordings.
Mrs. L. Smith, San Francisco, CA
"I was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines in 1991 when Mount Pinatubo erupted. We were evacuated out of the area with only clothes for a few days. We had to leave all our personal items: household items including a stereo and tapes. As a result of the damage from the eruption, I was never allowed to return to my house. I lost all my possessions. Insurance covered the cost, however, some things could not be replaced. Your music was lost. For all these years since that time, I have been haunted by the memory of those recordings.
I’m sure many people tell you how your music touched them. You can add me to that list. Even after almost 20 years, I still feel the loss."
B. Shipley, Texas
”We met him and heard his music at an art show in Lincoln Center. Curious, my wife and I listened for hours to Paul's spectacular music. We asked him why isn't he playing here in Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, his response was surprisingly blunt: "They don't respect my kind of music", he said. "There is no category for my kind of work and the people who control the music world simply don't understand what I am doing," We were flabbergasted! We purchased a set of his albums and listened to them almost every day. A year later we saw Paul again at the same art show where he introduced his newest albums to us. We purchased them, including "EARTH" for violin and orchestra. Later when we read the program notes, we simply couldn't believe that one individual could make all this music "happen" at one time. He played both the violin, the orchestra, and even the flute all in one sitting on his keyboards, yet to us it sounded like a symphony hall. Paul, please show this letter to anyone, anytime, you are one of the world's musical treasures and your work will live on forever. We believe in you and send you all our love and gratitude. Thank you.
R. Goldman, New York, NY
"Evokes a sense of peace and security. My shoulders relaxed in repose. After all is said and done, the Symphony left me with a feeling of epic beauty."
B. Riley, Dallas, TX
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PAUL LLOYD WARNER Composer and Performing Artist
Paul has released 32 albums since 1979 and has sold over one million during his career. He is the founder of a new genre in music:, PROGRESSIVE CLASSICAL MUSIC, the fusion of classical with new age music, uniting the melodic and harmonic elements of classical music with the spiritual, uplifting and healing qualities of new age music.
About The Artist
It is important to note PAUL LLOYD WARNER is a man driven by a fervent belief music should be a positive influence on humankind. The creation of his music is ruled by this philosophy, and is apparent to anyone who listens to his work. The principle that music can be healing is the creative genius at work in the music of this composer. With a musical style characterized by sophisticated pedal work and subtle use of overtones, Paul is a pioneer of new piano techniques. His music has furthered the development of multiple simultaneous melody lines and overlaying of overtones, bringing to the piano a dynamic complexity. A technique he developed, called the "moiré effect", employs an intricacy and speed of performance, creating slower secondary melodies, giving the illusion of two pianists, or multiple recording tracks.
Though his roots in compositional style are with Debussy and other European masters, what distinguishes his unique style is his fusion of Impressionism with Asian musical traditions, from China, Japan, Bali, Java, India, and Tibet, musical forms he studied while residing in Hawaii. It is a music which is exuberant, life-affirming, uplifting yet is deeply reflective and profound.
In many ways, PLW created his own musical genre “Progressive Classical”, combining elements of pure classical music, with the spiritual qualities of new age music, incorporating Asian and native influences. Form and structure, generally not found in new age music, are important elements to a new kind of music which is both inspirational and visionary.
The Piano
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Sales of PLW's early solo piano albums established him as a very widely sold artists in the field. In 1989 he began working with the new third generation digital sampling technology. This allowed him to create, via the use of multiple keyboards, symphonic digital music utilizing an enormous palette of musical color. The adaptation of his piano compositional style to electronic keyboards has taken the artist's work to a new level and broadened the appeal of his music to the public.
Though many artists now utilize the same technology, Paul has taken a different and unique approach to this method. While it is typical for an artist using electronic keyboards to play each part of the music separately, and then "layer" it together using multiple-track mixing equipment, he performs all his music in one sitting, solo or "live". This technique allows no internal editing or "fixing" of performances, and is particularly demanding. PLW's music is surprisingly rich and complex, sustaining an illusion of many instruments being played together seamlessly. It is Paul's belief this approach is a more honest, and genuine representation of the performing artist's capabilities, allowing for greater freedom of inspiration in the creative process.
Paul Lloyd Warner Brief Biography
A prolific composer, Paul has an infinite range of mood, imagery, feeling and sensitivity, and a tremendous palette of musical instruments. His music ranges from the most barely audible tones of a harp all the way to full symphonic scores. Paul plays LIVE for the Whales off the coast of Maui in 1976. His music is non-rhythmic, a very important aspect of healing music, and he has been recognize d as one of America's foremost composers of music for health and spiritual renewal.
Born in Los Angeles, California, October 5, 1938, Paul began his musical training at age seven. By his mid-teens Paul was studying advanced piano technique with the noted Esther Lipton. After completing his studies in literature at UCLA, he continued his musical education in Florence, Italy. It was while in Europe that Paul began to develop an original, yet classical style of composition and performance for the piano. Influenced strongly by well-known composers such as Debussy, Ravel, and Fauré, the music of PLW is modern, yet classically based, and wonderful to listen to.
Returning to the United States in 1963, Paul settled in New York City where he spent the following five years exploring the neophyte electronic music movement then taking hold in the city, while working as a freelance photographer. In 1968, Paul moved his newfound knowledge to the more relaxed environment of Maui, Hawaii. While in Hawaii, he continued developing a style of composition and performance, true to the guiding principles of the classics, yet infused with modern interpretation, personal reflections, and inspired by the beauty of nature. This can be heard in his first album, Waterfall Music, released in the late 1970's in the Hawaiian Islands.
While in Hawaii, Paul became the first musician to play music for Humpback whales in the open ocean on a 70 foot sailboat. With the use of a white grand piano fastened mid-ship and sophisticated underwater speakers, he played his music to nearby whales who swam underneath the boat for several hours, turning cartwheels, like acrobats underwater. Their joyful responses, caught on film by marine divers, were an inspiration and milestone to the artist and to thousands who watched the documentary on public television channels.
Upon his return to the mainland in 1983, Paul made his residence in California. From his coastal location he traveled throughout the United States in his motor coach specially outfitted with a digital recording studio. He returned to Honolulu briefly to play music for the Dolphins at Sea Life Park, a Dolphinarium on the coast of Oahu. The music was piped underwater and the following photograph shows the response the dolphins made by literally dancing out of the water. As a musician in touch with nature, he derives the inspiration for his works from the beauty of his surroundings. He records on location at such beauty spots as the Grand Canyon, the Olympic Rain forest, Yosemite, the deserts of the Southwest, and America's rugged western coastline.
Presently Paul resides in the San Diego area and is actively cataloguing his entire life's output of music, more than 30 albums released and more to be released in the future. He is a highly prolific composer and is currently preparing for the next phase of his music by multi-tracking large scale orchestral forces into a holographic musical system that promises to bring his music to new dimensions of beauty in the emerging 21st Century music.
Artistic Vision
I am dedicated to a new and fresh vision for music, one founded upon the noblest instincts in humanity, a music of the spirit – just as spirit has appeared in music from age to age, throughout the generations, from the ancient harp, the lyre, Egypt and Greece; to the plainchant of the Medieval church, to the glorious choral music of the Renaissance, to the magnificent Baroque; and Bach, the master of music, to the classicists, the sublime Mozart, to the Romantics, Impressionists and right up to the 20th century, age after age, composers have been struck by celestial music, by the hand of God, as it were, each one creating the masterworks that have accumulated into the music literature of spiritual music. The chants, the songs, the masses and requiems which glorify our spiritual nature in sound – these have molded me all my life into who I am today.
In the 1970's, without realizing it, I was creating music for healing and spiritual upliftment and became one of the acknowledged founders of what is today called "New Age Music". As I evolved as an artist, I drifted into my own style, somewhere between new age and classical. Somehow I found myself in "no man's" music land. No large record company could figure me out, nor wanted me. I was not rhythmic or danceable.
So I was set alone to drift upon my own waters, eventually bringing my music directly to the opinion of the public through self-distribution in Fairs, Festivals, Exhibitions, and Art Shows throughout the United States. I first starting in the San Francisco Bay area, then extending to southern California and Arizona. Later to the Pacific Northwest and finally to the East Coast, South, Texas and the Midwest. Wherever I traveled, I found a genuine public that overwhelmingly endorsed my work with an enthusiasm that often brought me to tears.
During this time, I traveled the country, taking my keyboards with me everywhere. During the midweek, between the weekend fairs, I would stop and beautiful locations and record music in the wilderness. My keyboards and digital recording equipment were taken by 4 wheel drive into nature. Powered by truck batteries, converted from DC to AC power, I had the unbelievable honor and privilege to be one of the first composers to record original music directly in nature and possibly the first keyboard artist to do so with multiple keyboards.
Just imagine what it's like to be fully setup with a temporary recording studio in the mountains, near a waterfall, with magnificent views, fragrance of pines, feeling the beauty all around me take my musical compositions to new heights by rearranging them in the inspiration of the moment! This is where my music is born, in the beauty of nature, in my memories of it when I was a child, and later in the immersion of being in the moment with the one, the whole, the all of it, in the spectacle of being alive at the moment of musical creation, letting the beauty all around me impinge upon my psyche, creating my best work.
From 1984 to 1995, we sold over one million copies of my albums which was considered an amazing success for one to one direct public sales. In a 12 year period, I spoke directly with a million people. How many people have actually conversed with so many people? An estimated five million people have heard my music on LP, cassette and CD, millions more on the radio throughout the world from time to time. In 1995 after 12 years on the road, I stopped, elated, exhausted, needing a long sabbatical. Since then, I have recorded a number of new albums and collected my works for publication. The Internet has risen to the primary global means of communication between people. Paul Lloyd Warner
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