PROGRAM: A WINDHAM HILL WINTER SOLSTICE DECEMBER 12 / 7:30 PM BING CONCERT HALL ARTISTS PROGRAM William Ackerman, acoustic A winter solstice concert featuring Windham Hill artists William Ackerman, steel-string guitars Alex de Grassi, Barbara Higbie, and special guests. Alex de Grassi, acoustic steel-string guitars Barbara Higbie, piano, violin, voice, Tonight’s program will be announced from the stage and will be performed with and guitar one intermission. Alex Kelly, cello Todd Boston, acoustic guitar PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Please be considerate of others and turn of all phones, pagers, and watch alarms, and unwrap all lozenges prior to the performance. Photography and recording of any kind are not permitted. Thank you. 32 STANFORD LIVE MAGAZINE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 ABOUT THE PROGRAM place from his adolescence in Vermont) was Guitarists William Ackerman and Alex de borrowed from his building company so that Grassi and pianist/multi-instrumentalist originally his business card read, “Windham Barbara Higbie honor the season with a Hill Builders/Records/Music (BMI).” concert of original and traditional acoustic music drawn from the multiplatinum-selling Will and his cousin Alex de Grassi toured Winter Solstice series as well as their many Germany in 1979. While there, Ackerman solo releases. began playing a cassette of piano music for those he met. This was the demo tape from William Ackerman founded Windham Hill a pianist named George Winston. Ackerman Records in Palo Alto in 1975. The label’s continued as the sole producer for Windham audiophile recordings were a runaway success Hill with George Winston’s Autumn, which was with critics and audiences alike. Musicians released in 1980 and immediately garnered a including Michael Hedges, George Winston, four-star review from Rolling Stone magazine. Will Ackerman, Alex de Grassi, Barbara Higbie To this day, Ackerman continues to produce and Darol Anger and their group Montreux, 10 recordings a year. His productions have Alex de Grassi Liz Story, Mark Isham, and Tuck and Patty enjoyed more number one positions on the quickly became internationally recognized. NAR/ZONE radio charts than those of where I played for free on so many nights, The name “Windham Hill” became any producer in the history of the genre. In but I suspect that might not be particularly synonymous with the best in acoustic music in 2012, Ackerman released a CD entitled The feasible. I haven’t been onstage with Alex the 1980s and 90s. Windham Hill’s 10 Winter Gathering: A New Generation of Musicians for years. I look forward to sharing the stage Solstice compilation recordings, selling in the Produced by Will Ackerman. The CD included with him again…more homecomings. many millions, “changed people’s conceptions the work of 22 musicians that he had produced of seasonal music” (John Diliberto/Echoes and introduced the world to brilliant new Alex de Grassi is a Grammy–nominated, radio show host). Tonight’s winter solstice music and musicians. The Gathering won internationally recognized pioneer of the concert brings the music of Windham Hill full Best Contemporary Instrumental Album and acoustic steel-string guitar. His 35 years of circle, 40 years after it was originally conceived Album of the Year awards in 2012. Speaking touring include performances at Carnegie on the Stanford campus. from his recording studio in the hills of Hall, the Montreux Jazz Festival, and the Vermont, he remembered: Bath International Guitar Festival. New York Guitar Festival Director David Spelman says, I grew up in Palo Alto, where my father was “Alex de Grassi is a treasure…his technical an Old English philologist at Stanford. I was wizardry as well as his vibrant and poetic music a student there from 1967 to 1971. The birth making make him one of the most distinctive of Windham Hill was arguably in an archway steel-string guitarists performing today.” His near the old student union, where I would 1978 recording, Turning: Turning Back (cited by play simply because of the reverberating Acoustic Guitar magazine as among its top- sound. Friends who loved the music ten essential finger-style guitar recordings), raised $300 in $5 bills for me to record and his recordings Slow Circle (1979), Southern my first album, In Search of the Turtle’s Exposure (1984), and the Grammy-nominated Navel, at Mantra Studios. I recorded it in The Water Garden (1998) are considered two afternoons, heart pounding through classics of the genre. His most recent solo my chest. My cousin Alex de Grassi and recording, Now and Then: Folk Songs for William Ackerman is a multiple Grammy I grew up together in College Terrace…a the 21st Century, features his contemporary Award–winning guitarist/composer/record neighborhood in Palo Alto. The original take on traditional folk songs. In 2006 de producer and the 2013 winner of the Lifetime address for Windham Hill Records was Box Grassi was co-commissioned by String Letter Achievement Award at the ZMR Music 9388, Stanford, CA. It will be somewhat Publishing (Acoustic Guitar magazine), along Awards. His impact on instrumental music in haunting to come back to play at Stanford, with violinist Jeremy Cohen, to compose and the last 40 years is unparalleled. Carpentry and but I’m looking forward to it very much. perform Three Themes for Guitar and Strings building were Ackerman’s first profession and I considered having everyone leave their at Herbst Theatre. Now residing near Ukiah, the name Windham Hill (after an important seats and follow me to the old archway de Grassi also remembers that time: encoremediagroup.com 33 PROGRAM: A WINDHAM HILL WINTER SOLSTICE I was born in Japan in 1952, and my family music as “a ray of bright sunlight,” and the San Before we knew it, Will was leading the moved in 1954 to Palo Alto, where I grew up Francisco Chronicle calls her “full of life and charge and it seemed the whole world and attended Stanford Elementary School, brilliant in her playing, the most exciting was following. It was a joyous time with a Terman Junior High School, and Gunn musician we’ve heard.” In addition to being warm family feeling among the musicians. High School. I graduated from UC Berkeley the first female instrumentalist on the with a degree in economic geography. My Windham Hill label, Higbie has appeared I recall truly breathtaking concerts at grandmother, née June Morgan, was a with musicians as diferent as Santana, Bonnie Davies Symphony Hall, the Montreux Stanford graduate and claimed to be one Raitt, the Kronos Quartet, Milton Jazz Festival, in a castle in Italy, and of the few women of her time to have a Nascimento, and Spyro Gyra, recording on in a grand palace in Stockholm. Will “Block S” for her participation in sports. over 100 CDs. In 2011, she was the first-ever Ackerman at the helm of Windham Hill My grandfather, Antonio de Grassi, was a artist-in-residence at the prestigious jazz club is the truest example of a visionary in native of Trieste, Italy, was a violinist with Yoshi’s. A graduate of Mills College (where action that I have ever witnessed. It’s an the San Francisco Symphony, had his own she was a student of Terry Riley’s) and the honor to be part of this historic concert, string quartet, and taught at UC Berkeley. recipient of a Watson Fellowship, she returning to Stanford with Will, Alex, My father was raised in San Francisco, collected traditional music throughout West Alex, and Todd. They are beautiful won a state classical piano competition Africa. At 23, Higbie recorded her Windham artists and truly good human beings. as a teenager, and later graduated from Hill 1982 duo release Tideline with violinist Stanford. My first cousin Will Ackerman Darol Anger, which garnered a four-star Joining Ackerman, de Grassi, and Higbie founded Windham Hill Records. We grew review in Downbeat magazine. In 1984, she tonight are two acclaimed instrumentalists: up around the corner from each other in co-led a group with Anger including Mike cellist Alex Kelly and guitarist Todd Boston. Palo Alto, a few years apart in age. When Marshall, Andy Narell, and Todd Phillips to Will went to Prep School in Massachusetts, record Live at Montreux. The group became there was a long period when we had very the Montreux Band (with Anger, Marshall, little communication. It was quite a surprise and Michael Manring) and toured a few years later to learn that we were both internationally for 12 years. Higbie’s composing and performing music for solo composition “To Be” became a radio staple steel-string guitar. It was only natural that of the 1980s, a TV theme song in Italy, and a I should follow in his footsteps, recording video with heavy rotation on VH1. Her early my music (1977) on his fledgling label. One Windham Hill titles have recently been of my very first professional performances reissued on Adventure Music. Higbie’s solo was upstairs at Tresidder Hall. Later both work has made the top-ten lists of the Will and I would perform at the Stanford Washington Post and Performing Songwriter Theater and the Varsity Theater on magazine. The most recent of her six solo To d d B o s t o n represents the new generation University Avenue in Palo Alto. releases, Scenes from Life, was recorded of steel-string guitarists. His album Touched in 2014 at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound. by the Sun, produced with Will Ackerman, Higbie recalls: was named Best Acoustic Instrumental Album of the Year at the 2012 ZMR Music Awards When I first met Will Ackerman in 1981, and charted number one on the World/ it felt like I’d encountered a human New Age listening charts.