Blue Heron Performances

David Lanz

Saturday, Oct 25, 8 pm
At: The Blue Heron
Tickets: $16 VAA members, seniors, students / $18 general admission

Grammy-nominated pianist, Seattle native

Grammy-nominated pianist and Seattle native, David Lanz is a contemporary instrumental legend. His passionate compositions helped shape the New Age music movement over 20 years ago. Since then, fans around the world have embraced his music which is infused with a tranquility welcome in today's hectic world.

Call it Zen Pop, heavy mellow or simply wonderful piano, but one thing is certain, Lanz has the hands. For those who know about such things, the span of his finger reaches a 10th, like C to E above the octave C, which translates to: “How does he play some of those tunes?” Thousands of piano students and teachers study David’s music, which is melodic and beautifully structured.

Lanz credits his mother as his first musical influence. A secretary by profession, she was active in Seattle choral groups, sang in big bands, and played boogie-woogie style piano. "I heard a lot of Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Nat King Cole growing up.”

David was skillfully playing by age ten, composing his own boogie-woogie tunes.
As a young teen, his musical style reflected the distinctive sounds emerging from America's British Invasion. Lanz paid tribute to The Beatles and other 1960’s in Songs from an English Garden (1997). From his young teens through his late 20s, Lanz performed with Northwest instrumental rock groups. Lanz even sang the pop tunes he was writing, but acknowledges it wasn’t his favorite thing. "Just let me play the piano," he says.

Deftly playing blues and jazz songs in no-name nightclubs, Lanz happened onto a different path in the early 1980’s.

"A friend of mine was leading a seminar on the energy centers of the body and wanted music to illustrate the flow of energy through these areas sometimes referred to as chakras," says Lanz . "I was also interested in the healing qualities of music and it's effect on body and soul, so I made a little tape of piano music for the seminar and just about everyone who heard it, to my utter surprise, wanted a copy!" Today, national spokesperson of American Music Therapy Association, Lanz is credited with having the first New Age hit single with Behind the Waterfall in the 1980’s.

His first recording, Heartsounds, helped launch Narada Records into the mainstream and led Lanz to a chart-topping career with nine bestselling solo albums and three popular collaborations with new age rock guitarist Paul Speer. Lanz's solo recordings include the landmark Cristifori’s Dream (number one, on Billboard's first adult alternative/new age chart for 27 weeks).

He also recorded an instructional piano video, Through the Hands of David Lanz (1997) a video that reveals his versatile style through discussions, demonstrations and performances. The video includes complete performances of some of his most popular songs.

Playing piano, Lanz says, is his greatest form of self-expression, especially at his concert performances where he effortlessly blends his emotionally affecting music ("a gift to the soul" wrote one reviewer) with audience involvement and his own charming comic take on what it's like to be a SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy).

"The chance to play the music is great," says Lanz, whose solo concerts have won critical raves. "But concerts are also opportunities to show the audience a bit more of myself than just playing the piano."

His 2008 CD Painting the Sun (Shanachie) will be available at the concert, along with previous recordings and songbooks.