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Artist: Richard Shulman
Title: Camelot Reawakened, A Vision Fulfilled
Label: Richheart Music (www.richheartmusic.com)
Genre: Orchestral
If Richard Shulman is known as a new age composer, it doesn't show on his current orchestral work, Camelot Reawakened, A Vision Fulfilled. It's a tune- filled, ballad-laden romp that owes more to modern Romanticism and Aaron Copland than the likes of Jim Brickman and Enya. True, there aren't the dramatics in this disc that are found in most classical music, but that's where its heart lies.
Especially in Christmas colors. Right now it is November 17, 2002 and turning colder. Shulman's Camelot warms the heart and cd player with a rich full sound that tells that it's time to bring out the ol' Mel Torme records.
For a live concert, recorded January 12, 2002, this sounds quite good. Of course some was recorded in a closed session on the following day at the Diana Wortham Theatre in Asheville, North Carolina. A 35-piece orchestra consisting of Asheville Symphony Orchestra members handled the music faultlessly, joined by a 20 member choir. Shulman wrote, orchestrated and produced all you hear, while the conducting was handled by Robert Hart Baker.
1. The Dream
2. A Royal Procession
3. A Celebration
4. Releasing the Past/Healing
5. Remember the Love That We Are
6. Prayer
7. For Those Who Have Returned from the Center of the Labyrinth
8. Integration and Empowerment
9. The Dream Fulfilled
Shulman is a wonderful orchestrator. True, even 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' could come out majestic and swelling when there are This many people behind it. But it all depends on your arranger. Camelot has a fine one. If RS has put the same amount of effort and quality into his previous releases, his catalog must be impressive. Well, go listen for yourself at the website listed above. There are mp3 samples for all tracks of Camelot. - Ben Ohmart (Asst. Editor)
Camelot Reawakened: A Vision Fulfilled by Richard Shulman
Composer-musician Richard Shulman is a man with a mission: to help listeners fully embody the qualities and consciousness of the Divine in order to bring into awareness heaven on Earth. In Camelot Reawakened: A Vision Fulfilled, Richard has created a nine-movement symphony to take us all a little closer to that awareness. With his piano and the support of a 35-piece orchestra, a choir and some very gifted vocal- and instrumental soloists, Richard musically revives Camelot, which has been sleeping all these years and hidden in the mist of time by the dense breath of the dragon. Like the fabled Merlin, Richard uses energy more subtle than any weapon—yet far more powerful—to advance our way to the Holy Grail. Using contemporary classical music like a blazing star, he burns away the obscuring breath of the dragon with his glorious soundscapes and reveals the divine Camelot. Highly recommended to lovers of the symphony and contemporary classical music with new age undertones. Richheart
- Rev. Robert Walmsley
Richard Shulman - Magnified Healing (1998); Music to Walk the Labyrinth, Synthesizer Music for the Inner Journey(1999); Light From Assisi (1991); Keeper of the Holy Grail - with Samuel Welsh (1997); Ascension Harmonics - with Samuel Welsh (1994)
Richard Shulman's music heals. The innermost and delicate recesses of the heart open as we float into a consciousness that holds us gently in its all ways healing kindness. These few words are a paean to that healing. How many times have I been distraught, perhaps over this declining body that even as I write this, sits tethered to an oxygen tank? With Ascension Harmonics on the CD player, head phones on my ears, I lie on the living room floor and let the enormous cathedral tonalities take me to peace, to surrender.
Like a Gothic cathedral, the layers of music reach deep into love. I think my favorite is Ascension Harmonics, possibly because I played it on the air so often that it compelling passages of devotion reach out to take me with them. All five of these extraordinary pieces of music, however, share the magic of being bridges to realms of peace. They are neither classical nor "new age" but a combination of harmonic development that has us resonating to them.
Shulman is also a jazz musician, but I haven't heard enough of his jazz cd's or cassettes to review them.
In his flyer, he talks of "amplifying the divine qualities inherent in each one of us." There are few musicians who open up my heart as unfailingly as Richard Shulman. www.richheartmusic.com
- Elisabeth Gips
Discography
Wonder 1980 - Jazz compositions with the Richard Shulman Group.
A Simple Gift -1986 Jazz compositions with the Richard Shulman Group.
Solo Flight 1986 - Solo Piano compositions and Jazz improvisations.
World Peace 1986 Solo Piano improvisations.
A Higher Dimension 1988 - Solo Piano improvisations.
Light From Assisi 1990 - Synthesizer compositions honoring St. Francis.
Transformation At Assisi 1992 - Music expressing personal evolution at the birthplace of St. Francis.
Music for Magnified Healing™ 1994 - Synthesizer music for healing work.
Ascension Harmonics 1994 - Sixteen pieces to support the embodying of divine qualities.
Light Music 1996 - Synthesizer music correlating to color and body energy centers.
Open Spaces 1997 - Jazz compositions with the Richard Shulman Group.
First Rites 1997 - Synthesizer music for Healing Touch.
Keeper of the Holy Grail 1997 - Orchestral instruments, piano and keyboards.
Sacred Music For Healing Hands Volume #1 1999 - Synthesizer music for healing work.
Sacred Music For Healing Hands Volume #2 1999 - Synthesizer music for healing work.
Music to Walk the Labyrinth 1999 - Synthesizer music for the inner journey.
Camelot Reawakened 2002 - Large scale piece for orchestra, piano, choir and soloists on the theme of dreams coming true.
New Beginnings 2003 - Intimate duets with piano and cello.
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
RICHARD SHULMAN
Keyboardist and composer Richard Shulman composes music intended to be a positive influence for himself, audiences, and society. To further this purpose he often works with archetypal themes.
Shulman’s new CD, Camelot Reawakened: A Vision Fulfilled, musically portrays a rebirth of the Camelot ideals. “The theme is the fulfillment of dreams of the heart for individuals and society,” he explains. “The most beautiful world imaginable can happen, and I hope this music will contribute to its manifestation.” Composed and orchestrated by Shulman over a five-year period, Camelot Reawakened is a contemporary-classical, nine-movement symphonic work featuring Shulman on acoustic piano with a 35-piece orchestra, a choir, and vocal and instrumental soloists. The CD is available in stores nationwide and from RichHeart Music (888-699-3682 and www.richheartmusic.com).
According to Shulman, “For the past 16 years, album-by-album I have been attempting
to create music which will help set the stage for a harmonious society envisioned by many spiritual traditions, forward thinkers and ordinary people.” This journey has resulted in 17 of his own albums as well as other recordings for which he has provided the music. Trained in the classical field, Shulman first worked as a rock musician and then a jazz pianist before turning to music for healing and inspiration. As a composer, however, his classical sensibility has permeated each genre he has worked in.
Shulman has performed at Carnegie Hall, Art Park, the United Nations, the Kool Jazz Festival, The Amenia Peace Festival and a wide variety of other venues throughout North America and Europe. He has composed music for and performed on more than a dozen albums by others -- singers (Susan Slack, Elizabeth Hepburn, Connie Hanham, Shelley Koffler) as well as speakers in the field of guided meditations and visualizations (Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, Puja Thomson, Jessie Ayani, Elizabeth Joyce, and Reiki master Pat Cyr). During residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, he composed music for orchestra and jazz quartet; and for a decade he was the principal composer for “Theatre of the Heart,” a cooperative of dancers, singers and musicians dedicated to preserving community and the environment. Shulman’s commissions include a piece for the Amherst Saxophone Quartet, and “May Peace Prevail on Earth” (a composition for singers, symphony orchestra, three choirs and jazz quartet) created for the World Peace Prayer Society.
Born and raised in Niagara Falls, New York, Richard often listened to symphonies on record and in concert as a youngster. His family got him a piano and he began lessons at age seven which continued through high school, although he additionally studied violin for a year and clarinet for five years. As a teenager Richard also played organ at various churches, was the music counselor at a summer camp in Canada, and joined a rock band with future jazz recording artists Thom Rotella and Bobby Previte. Shulman graduated from the University of Rochester with a double-major Bachelor’s degree in music (piano performance) and psychology while continuing to perform with Previte in the jazz-fusion band Thermopylae. Shulman’s early musical influences were Beethoven, Bach and Chopin; then in high school it was The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix; and on into college it switched to Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Paul Winter, Oscar Peterson and Ray Charles followed a few years later by Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, and Chick Corea.
While at Rochester, Shulman also attended the prestigious Eastman School of Music and studied jazz improvisation with Chuck Mangione and Marian McPartland, arranging with Raymond Wright, and orchestration with Donald Hunsberger. Shulman continued his studies in jazz with Frank Foster while getting his Masters Degree in musical composition at the State University of New York at Buffalo. During those years he played onstage in concert with such jazz stalwarts as Thad Jones, Eddie Gomez, Pepper Adams, Jerry Dodgion, Freddie Hubbard and Al Harewood, and recorded his first jazz album, Wonder. After moving to New York City, Shulman played in the studio as a session musician with the great jazz rhythm section of Ron Carter and Grady Tate; performed with groups such as The Richard Reiter Swing Band, Providence and Crossing Point; and recorded and performed with the acts Mr. Spats (Steve Evans, June Bisantz, Steve Swallow and Bob Moses) and Bobby Previte. The Richard Shulman Group, a jazz quartet, played regularly in the New York area and recorded the albums A Simple Gift and Open Spaces, and Richard also released the solo jazz piano album Solo Flight.
Shulman began moving beyond the jazz scene in New York City when he recorded his first extemporaneous solo piano album, World Peace, on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima (he performed at a peace meeting the same day). This led Shulm
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