Stephan Labossier

Stephan Micus is a one-man universe of sound. He collects and studies instruments from around the world and creates his own musical journeys with them. This is his 24th solo album for ECM created in his studio with many recordings and overdubs. The twelve tracks on Winter’s End feature two new instruments, the chikulo from Mozambique and a Central African-style tongue drum. In addition there’s kalimba (thumb piano), sinding (Gambian harp), Egyptian nay flute, Japanese nohkan flute, Balinese suling flute, bowed sattar from Xinjiang, Tibetan cymbals, Peruvian charango and a 12-string guitar. Most of these have never sounded together before.

It might be surprising that the Oscar and Grammy nominated gentleman behind massive inescapable hits for Miley Cyrus, The Weeknd, and Celine Dion is a classically trained impresario. However, for producer, songwriter, composer and musician STEPHAN MOCCIO, bringing a timeless aesthetic into the modern musical landscape comes naturally.

Stephan Micus is an extraordinary musical traveller, exploring the world, collecting instruments and then creating his own musical worlds from them. This is his 23rd album for ECM and on each one he composes the tracks, plays and overdubs them to create unique and exquisite pieces of chamber music. The ten tracks on ‘White Night’ particularly rely on the sound of various sub-Saharan kalimba (thumb pianos) and the oboe-like Armenian duduk. There are two purely solo tracks, ‘All the Way’ on a kalimba from Botswana and ‘The Moon’ on Armenian duduk, while ‘Fireflies’ has 22 overdubs of Indian whistles, Micus’s voice and other instruments. “I dedicate this album to the moon which has always been a source of magic in many cultures,” says Micus. “Music too is a source of magic which is where the two connect.” Aside from his 14 string guitar, Micus plays instruments from Armenia, Tibet, India, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, Botswana, Namibia and Ethiopia, most of them in combinations never heard before.

The German-French composer Mark Andre (b.1964) is one of the most important representatives of New Music. His twelve "Miniatures" for string quartet were composed in 2014/17 as a commission from the Arditti Quartet, Bavarian Radio's "musica viva", the Festival d'Automne à Paris and the ProQuartet-CEMC, funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. Andre created his organ work "Himmelfahrt" (Ascension), funded by the Siemens Music Foundation, in 2018 on behalf of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The orchestral work woher…wohin was written between 2015 and 2017 as a composition commission by BR's "musica viva" in conjunction with the Happy New Ears prize for composition from the Hans and Gertrud Zender Foundation. The live recordings of all three works are now being released in the CD edition of Bavarian Radio's "musica viva" concert series on BR-KLASSIK.

"Tai Chi", "Baby Massage", "Pregnancy", "Feng Shui II", "Yoga - The Five Tibetans", "Natural Wellness", "Inner Peace", "Relax the Body", "Pure Relaxation with Piano Moods".
Music written, produced and performed by Stephan North, a popular composer of meditation, yoga and healing music.