30th Anniversary Concert Celebrates Windham Hill

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director of Marketing
The Paramount Theater
215 East Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.979.1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

December 19, 2006

For thirty years, the Windham Hill record label has been synonymous with the best of new age instrumentals -- that unique musical fusion encompassing folk, classical, and jazz.   From the vision of Windham Hill’s founders -- a label that would cross many instrumental genres -- sprang a home for current post-modern sounds bridging world music, trip-hop, and dance.

To honor three successful decades of these diverse musical sounds, the Windham Hill 30th Anniversary Tour is bringing stellar musicians of the label together for a celebratory event, which makes a stop at The Paramount Theater on Saturday, January 6 at 8 pm.  Fully living up to the excellence and multiplicity of the Windham Hill name, the concert will feature guitarist and Windham Hill founder Will Ackerman, one of the world’s leading electric violinists with Tracy Silverman, Grammy Award winning-guitarist David Cullen, and melodic trans-cultural music by Ugandan musician/composer Samite. 

This performance is sponsored by Dennis and Maleah Crumpler.

Guitarist, composer, and founder of Windham Hill Records, Will Ackerman never planned to pursue music as either an academic or career goal.   Music had always been a big part of his life, and he played concerts and for productions in and around Stanford University.  However, Ackerman had set his sights on carpentry until the recording and private release of The Search for the Turtle’s Navel in 1976.  Intended for friends and a small legion of fans, the album garnered airplay in Seattle, Portland, Boston, Denver, and the San Francisco Bay Area, which led to independent distribution and the inescapable conclusion that a record label -- Windham Hill Records -- had been born.                

Ackerman’s first paying gig was at the Seattle Opera House in front of 3,700 people.  While acting as the president, CEO, and finally Chairman of Windham Hill, and seeing the cottage industry he founded grow to generate between 30 and 40 million dollars annually, Ackerman never stopped being a musician too.  He has recorded eleven additional CDs over the years to glowing reviews, and performed internationally in concert.   Although Ackerman sold his interest in Windham Hill to BMG in 1992, his acclaimed artistic output continues, with most recent release Returning receiving the 2004 Grammy Award for Best New Age Album.

Recording artist Tracy Silverman has performed and recorded with a virtual who's who of the rock, pop, new music, and jazz fields.  Considered one of the foremost electric violinists of our time, he is known both in the concert hall and in clubs for his instantly recognizable with a trademark sound.   His 1999 self-produced release Trip to the Sun has become a cult favorite which Billboard Magazine pronounced "the most adventurous Windham Hill album ever."

Silverman has been playing violin since he was five years old, and made his professional debut at age thirteen as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  A graduate of Juilliard, he was first violinist with the Turtle Island String Quartet and has been featured as a violinist and record producer on CBS News Sunday Morning. He produced and appears on Jim Brickman's hit Simple Things and Lovesongs and Lullabies CDs and on two of Brickman’s popular TV Specials.  Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams wrote his major new electric violin concerto, The Dharma at Big Sur, expressly for Silverman, who has performed it at the gala opening of the LA Philharmonic’s new home (the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall), Royal Albert Hall, and Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall.   A new recording of the work was released in September 2006, featuring Silverman with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, John Adams conductor.

Guitarist David Cullen performs in a dazzling wide range of styles including classical, jazz, and world music.  A graduate of the Hartt School of Music in Classical Guitar Performance, Cullen has released nine CDs, performed throughout North America, and been presented with a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Recording.  He has performed with Will Ackerman, Samite, Michael Manring, Victor Wooten, The Jaco Big Band, and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra.  Cullen’s recordings are included on the Windham Hill Guitar Sampler and other Windham Hill Compilation CDs, and have been featured on NPR stations across the country.  Cullen is currently an Artist-in-Residence at Elizabethtown College and teaches jazz and classical guitar at Kutztown University.

Born and raised in Uganda, Samite’s first musical training came from his grandfather, who taught him to play the traditional flute. A high school teacher in Kampala put a western flute in his hands, and after fleeing to Kenya as a political refugee in 1982 he played with the Bacchus Club Jazz Band and the popular African Heritage Band, eventually playing solo at the Mount Kenya Safari Club in Nairobi.  Delivering mellifluous vocals in his mother tongue of Luganda, he mesmerized audiences with original compositions played on kalimba (finger-piano), marimba (wooden xylophone), litungu (seven-stringed Kenyan instrument) and various flutes; traditional and western.  Emigrating to the United States in 1987, Samite now makes his home in Ithaca, New York.

Samite's sixth and newest CD, 2003’s Tunula Eno, was written and recorded during the last year of his beloved wife Joan's life.  A celebration of that which makes us human -- love, loss, endurance, and hope -- the album reached #2 on the CMJ Music World Chart within the first month of its release.  Samite has also appeared live on the nationally syndicated NPR radio program Echoes, and recently recorded a live performance for the Ngoma Channel on XM Radio in Washington, DC.  Samite's live performance on the nationally syndicated show E-Town will be broadcast on over 120 stations as will his broadcast for the nationally syndicated radio show World Vision Radio.  In addition to Samite's musical career, he is the founder of the non-profit organization, Musicians for World Harmony, which enables musicians worldwide to share their music to promote peace, emphasizing the displaced and distressed who can benefit most from the healing power of music.

Seats for the Windham Hill 30th Anniversary Tour on Saturday, January 6 are $45, $40, $37, and $34.  Students of all ages may obtain half-price student rush tickets at the Box Office with a valid ID 45 minutes prior to curtain.  Group discounts are also available. 

Tickets are available online or through The Paramount’s Box Office at 434.979.1333. 

For more information about these artists, please visit www.williamackerman.com, www.tracysilverman.com, www.cullenguitar.com, and www.samite.com.