ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Guitarists William Ackerman and Alex de Grassi and pianist/multi-instrumentalist Barbara Higbie honor the season with a concert of original and traditional acoustic music drawn from the multi-platinum selling Winter Solstice series as well as their many solo releases.
William Ackerman founded Windham Hill Records in Palo Alto in 1975. The label’s audiophile recordings were a run-away success with critics and audiences alike. Musicians including Michael Hedges, George Winston, Will Ackerman, Alex de Grassi, Barbara Higbie and Darol Anger and their group Montreux, Liz Story, Mark Isham, and Tuck and Patty quickly became internationally recognized. The name “Windham Hill” became synonymous with the best in acoustic music in the 1980s and 90s. Windham Hill’s 10 Winter Solstice compilation recordings, selling in the many millions, “changed people’s conceptions of seasonal music” (John Diliberto, Echoes radio show host). The Winter Solstice Concerts bring the music of Windham Hill full circle, 40 years after it was originally conceived on the Stanford campus.
About The Artists
William Ackerman is a multiple Grammy Award-winning guitarist/composer/record producer and the 2013 winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the ZMR Music Awards. His impact on instrumental music in the last 40 years is unparalleled. Carpentry and building were Ackerman’s first profession and the name Windham Hill (after an important place from his adolescence in Vermont) was borrowed from his building company so that originally his business card read “Windham Hill Builders and Records/Music (BMI).”
Will and his cousin Alex de Grassi toured Germany in 1979. While there, Ackerman began playing a cassette of piano music
for those he met. This was the demo tape from a pianist named George Winston. Will continued as the sole producer for Windham Hill with George Winston’sAutumn, which was released in 1980 and immediately garnered a four-star review from Rolling Stone magazine. To this day, Ackerman continues to produce 10 recordings a year. His productions have enjoyed more number one positions on the NAR/ZONE radio charts than any producer in the history of the genre. In 2012, Ackerman released a CD entitled The Gathering: A New Generation of Musicians produced by Will Ackerman. The CD included the work of 22 musicians that he had produced and introduced the world to brilliant new music and musicians. The Gathering won Best Contemporary Instrumental Album and Album of the Year awards in 2012. Speaking from his recording studio in hills of Vermont, he remembered: “I grew up in Palo Alto, and became a student at Stanford. The birth of Windham Hill was arguably in an archway near the old student union, where I would play simply because of the reverberating sound. Friends who loved the music raised $300 in $5 bills for me to record my first album, In Search of the Turtle’s Navel, at Mantra Studios. I recorded it in two afternoons, heart pounding through my chest.
for those he met. This was the demo tape from a pianist named George Winston. Will continued as the sole producer for Windham Hill with George Winston’sAutumn, which was released in 1980 and immediately garnered a four-star review from Rolling Stone magazine. To this day, Ackerman continues to produce 10 recordings a year. His productions have enjoyed more number one positions on the NAR/ZONE radio charts than any producer in the history of the genre. In 2012, Ackerman released a CD entitled The Gathering: A New Generation of Musicians produced by Will Ackerman. The CD included the work of 22 musicians that he had produced and introduced the world to brilliant new music and musicians. The Gathering won Best Contemporary Instrumental Album and Album of the Year awards in 2012. Speaking from his recording studio in hills of Vermont, he remembered: “I grew up in Palo Alto, and became a student at Stanford. The birth of Windham Hill was arguably in an archway near the old student union, where I would play simply because of the reverberating sound. Friends who loved the music raised $300 in $5 bills for me to record my first album, In Search of the Turtle’s Navel, at Mantra Studios. I recorded it in two afternoons, heart pounding through my chest.
Barbara Higbie is a Grammy-nominated, Bammy Award-winning pianist/composer/ singer-songwriter as well as a championship fiddler. The Los Angeles Times described her music as “a ray of bright sunlight,” and the San Francisco Chronicle calls her “full of life and brilliant in her playing, the most exciting musician we’ve heard.” In addition to being the first female instrumentalist on the Windham Hill label, Higbie has appeared with musicians as di erent as Santana, Bonnie Raitt, the Kronos Quartet, Milton Nascimento, and Spyro Gyra, recording on over 100 CDs. In 2011, Barbara was the first-ever artist-in-residence at the prestigious Jazz Club Yoshi’s. A graduate of Mills College (where she was a student of Terry Riley’s) and the recipient of a Watson Fellowship, she collected traditional music throughout West Africa. At 23, Higbie recorded her Windham Hill 1982 duo release Tideline with violinist Darol Anger, which garnered a four-star review in Downbeat magazine. In 1984, she co-led a group with Anger including Mike Marshall, Andy Narell, and Todd Phillips to record Live at Montreux. The group became the Montreux Band (with Anger, Marshall, and Michael Manring) and toured internationally for 12 years. Higbie’s composition “To Be” became a radio staple of the 1980s, a TV theme song in Italy, and a video with heavy rotation on VH1. Her early Windham Hill titles have recently been reissued on Adventure Music. Higbie’s solo work has made the top ten lists of the Washington Post and Performing Songwriter magazine. The most recent of her six solo releases, Scenes from Life, was recorded in 2014 at Lucas lm’s Skywalker Sound. Higbie recalls: “When I first met Will Ackerman in 1981, it felt like I’d encountered a human cyclone. If Will became excited about music, true magic happened. I was working hard on creating my own style of music somewhere between classical music, West African, Joni Mitchell, Chick Corea, Bluegrass, and Bartók. Ackerman heard one of my early compositions on Darol Anger’s Fiddlistics album and said, “I want to make a whole album of that!” At the time, Windham Hill Records was in what looked like a garage in Palo Alto. Before we knew it, Will was leading the charge and it seemed the whole world was following. It was a joyous time with a warm family feeling among the musicians. I recall truly breathtaking concerts at Davies Symphony Hall, the Montreux Jazz Festival, in a castle in Italy, and in a grand palace in Stockholm. Will Ackerman at the helm of Windham Hill is the truest example of a visionary in action that I have ever witnessed. It’s an honor to be part of these historic concerts, with Will and Alex. They are beautiful artists and truly good human beings.”
Alex De Grassi is a Grammy-nominated, internationally recognized pioneer of the acoustic steel string guitar. His 35 years of touring include performances at Carnegie Hall, the Montreux Jazz Festival, and the Bath International Guitar Festival. New York Guitar Festival Director David Spelman says “Alex de Grassi is a treasure…his technical wizardry as well as his vibrant and poetic music making make him one of the most distinctive steel-string guitarists performing today.” His 1978 recording, Turning: Turning Back (cited by Acoustic Guitar magazine among its top-ten essential nger-style guitar recordings, and his recordings Slow Circle (1979), Southern Exposure (1984), and the Grammy-nominated The Water Garden (1998) are considered classics of the genre. His most recent solo recording, Now and Then: Folksongs for the 21st Century, features his contemporary take on traditional folk songs. In 2006 De Grassi was co- commissioned by String Letter Publishing (Acoustic Guitarmagazine), along with violinist Jeremy Cohen, to compose and perform Three Themes for Guitar and Strings at Herbst Theatre. Now residing near Ukiah, De Grassi also remembers that time: “I was born in Japan in 1952, my family moved in 1954 to Palo Alto, where I grew up and attended Stanford Elementary School. I graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in economic geography. My grandfather, Antonio de Grassi, was a native of Trieste, Italy, a violinist with the San Francisco Symphony and a leader of his own string quartet.”