BY INVITATION ONLY is a section for profiles of individuals in the arts that I have met and personally recommend. They are developed to a point that their work has a professional quality (appropriate to their age and experience), and their careers and stories merit sharing and following. I personally find genre descriptions too limiting...I love music and art of all different types, so I don't sort by artistic genre, or style. I love excellence in its varying stages and mediums. And I'm always also interested in a good, sincere, and well-done effort that shows promising growth, so you will find that I feature a wide variety of artist here. I tell you what I think and who I like, let me know what you think and who you like!
SIMON SPIRE It's fun to remember that I met Simon in an airport and listened to a few songs in a car in the parking garage; he was 'fresh off the boat' from New Zealand. What I heard were his first self-produced songs, made with friends back home in New Zealand. They were pretty rough, both over-produced and under-produced, the song-writing tending to wander about, the vocals, uncertain. Still, there was something that caught my attention. His guitar work and arrangements were excellent and showed talent, and his song-writing, though pretty rough showed promise.For music & more detailsclick here
RALF ILLENBERGER First, let me say that if you have the chance to see this artist live, you won't forget the experience. He's an extraordinary guitarist and performer. He gets sounds from an acoustic guitar that seems impossible and people are always amazed there is only one guitarist. More than that they are transported, and if I had to choose one word to describe Ralf it would probably be transporting. He's a great musical experience. For music & more detailsclick here
AVA Artist, architect, pilot, poet, and humanitarian, Ava is a Renaissance woman. Exuberant and sharp-minded, she is deeply spiritually connected to life and to her art. Her career spans nearly fifty years, covering the globe, and her works are in numerous museums and private collections. Yet she is less known because her methods have taken her primarily outside of the conventional world of art. For the full story Click Here
KARJAM SAEJI It was awesome to discover Karjam Saeji
at the auditions for Lopez Artist Advance. Dressed in colorful
traditional performance attire, he sang a cappella with two songs
accompanied by local percussionist Jamie Cordova. His talent and
presence were riveting. Producer Ralf Illenberger was extremely
excited to work with such a vocal talent, and loved the possibilities
of Karjam's traditional compositions. Said Illenberger, "Karjam has a
world-class voice, its a privilege to work with vocal talent of this
caliber. I also love his compositions...Karjam has a very strong sense
of melody and writes memorable songs that reach deep." For the full storyCLICK HERE
KIANA Kiana and her parents came to my home in Washington State in November of 2005 for a three-day intensive about Kiana's career. We had terrific fun and all grew to hold great respect and love for one another. Her parents are savy, dear, dear people - professors in Japan. It was there that I heard two songs Kiana had hurriedly written for a contest in Hawaii - her first song-writing attempt. Amongst all the miscellaneous materials she had sent ahead for me to review, these were the standouts. For music & more detailsclick here
JEAN-JACQUES TETU When the auditions were over for Lopez Artist Advance, we couldn't choose only one winner. So we didn't. We raised additional funds to record a demo for this talented young man. The initial idea was to give him the chance in the studio to explore and develop his own individual sound, since most of his focus had been on the songs of his musical heros. I also wanted to encourage his song writing. We met a number of times with this in mind and, surprisingly, by the time we went into the studio, Jean-Jacque had applied himself with such success that he had grown by leaps and bounds and thus the five song demo became a full-length demo. For music & more detailsCLICK HERE
