MEG BOWLES
THE SHIMMERING LAND
When
synthesist Meg Bowles creates her ambient musical soundscapes, she does it as
carefully as any classical composer. On her new album, The
Shimmering Land, the music has different sections, purposeful movement,
counterpoint, shifting textures and specific emotionalism.
“When
you first listen, it may sound like you are floating in space, but careful
discernment unveils a melody and structure there,” explains Bowles, who is a
classically-trained musician. “Within the music there are many different layers
of listening, and also different ways of listening. I find that whether
composing or listening to music, when it’s right I feel a resonance, a moment
of truth, like the vibration of a perfect interval in tune.”
Bowles
has been prominent in the fields of ambient and space music for the past 20
years, since the release of her first two recordings—Inner
Space and Solstice Dreams—in 1993.
She then stretched the genre’s musical boundaries with a groundbreaking series
of commissions from David Bilger, Principal Trumpet of the Philadelphia
Orchestra, for new works combining trumpet and synthesizer. The first of these,
“Night Sun Journey,” was premiered by Bilger at the International Trumpet Guild
Conference, followed by the premiere of “Places Where Rivers Meet” at
Washington’s National Cathedral. These works and others for trumpet and
synthesizer were featured on From the Dark Earth, with
Bilger as soloist.
Bowles’
next solo CD was the acclaimed A Quiet Light. Her
work also has appeared on two compilation albums, The Other
World (Hypnos Recordings) and Soundscape
Gallery 2 (Lektronic Soundscapes). In addition, Bowles contributed
the opening and closing pieces for the Zodiac series
of recordings, a 12-CD classical-crossover set released by Angel/EMI.
Bowles’
foremost influence is classical music. She began playing flute at a young age
and studied classical music throughout her school years, eventually earning her
B.A. degree in music from Boston University. “I am an admirer of Bach for
his transcendent clarity, Prokofiev for always putting the wrong note in the
right place, Handel and Arvo Pärt for their sacred choral music, Copland for
his talent as an orchestrator, and Stravinsky for his overall genius. But even
as a child I also had a fascination with electronic music which came to the
forefront in my life in the 1980s when I started listening to Steve Roach and
also to the Hearts of Space radio show. That started me on the road to
composing seriously.”
There
are other influences in Bowles’ music as well. She is a licensed psychoanalyst
specializing
in working with dreams, creativity, and trauma. She has extensively studied
both Jungian psychology and shamanism. “Jung wrote that the psyche strives
towards wholeness and consciousness. One of the questions I always ask is: How
do we want to express our creativity in the world? On a personal level, my
interest in the psyche cannot be separated from my interest in creating music.”
Often
inspired by a combination of “awe and wonder” regarding the cosmos, outer space
and celestial bodies, Bowles also views more terrestrial nature as “a huge
inspiration, whether I’m walking in the woods, listening to the natural sounds
found outdoors, enjoying waves on a shoreline, or studying the night sky.”
The
Shimmering Land album begins with the ebb and flow of “Undulant Sea” with
its wave-like rocking motion and powerful underlying emotionalism. “Our oceans
are what make life on Earth possible, and humankind first visited the far
corners of our world by sea travel, so this piece contains the up-and-down
motion, the rocking movement of the sea, symbolic of the beginning of the
journey.” The composition “The Sweetness of Mist” was inspired by the haze that
sometimes envelops her Connecticut island home. “Mist creates a hushed, mystical,
magical environment and recalls the fables about Avalon. I tried to capture the
feeling of suspense, the look of diffused light, and the majesty of nature
shrouded and not quite seen clearly.”
With
“Venus Rising,” Bowles says she attempted to musically conjure the sense of a
planet rising on the horizon and moving across the sky. “Venus recently came as
close to Earth as it ever does, and Venus holds a special place in mythology
with its feminine mystique, so I had strong feelings as I was writing.” Regarding
“Into The Gloaming,” she states, “Twilight is a very magical time as the sky
shifts toward deep blue and then darkness. It’s also representative of the
later years of our lives, and the question arises as to how we will handle it—with
fear and uncertainty, or with a sense of adventure and growth.”
“Beneath
the Radiant Stars” serves as a tribute to anyone who has lain outside at night,
watching the flickering light of far-off stars as they move across the sky.
“Space music seeks to illuminate the wondrous love affair humans have with the
stars and the cosmos. The almost flute-like melody represents travel out into
hushed space and then returning.” On “Nightwalk Across the Isle of Dream,”
Bowles was inspired not only by after-dark hikes with her dogs, but also by the
idea of “a dreamland where extraordinary things can happen, a place where we
can explore other realities and our deeper consciousness.”
Bowles
explains, “I’m crafting what I call ambient orchestral soundscapes. There are
some symphonic elements that are more classical in structure, and I do tend to
specifically have a beginning, a middle and an ending for each piece. I like
the idea that music can take the listener out of this world to another place, a
deeper space. I want listeners to engage with the music with their mind, body
and heart.”
Meg
Bowles’ musical journey began as a child growing up with a wide variety of
classical music at home. Her father is a musicologist and timpanist who has
published widely in the areas of medieval musical instruments and performance
practices as well as the history of the timpani and the impact of technology on
instrument-building. The whole family enjoyed the opera (“We all shared a love
of Don Giovanni by Mozart,” says Bowles). She started on recorder
at age seven, switched to flute two years later, played in school bands and
youth orchestras, performed in major venues (Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center,
Wolf Trap National
Park for
the Performing Arts), and studied privately under top musicians throughout college.
“We not
only played all sorts of classical music around the house, we also had this
album of music for electronic tape composed
by Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky. It was other-worldly sounding,
sort of sci-fi spooky like the ‘Outer Limits’ TV show soundtrack. I
was fascinated by this early electronic music. When I finally got
a synthesizer in the early ‘90s, I realized
how much I loved, and wanted to create music with, those synthesized sounds.”
After
getting her degree in music, Bowles earned an M.B.A. in finance from Columbia
University (she worked in investment banking for several years). She then
decided to pursue her interest in analytical psychology and graduated from the
Westchester Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.
“I try
to help people reconnect to their inner life by giving them a space to listen
to the deepest parts of themselves, and to tell the stories that emanate from
that authentic place of soul. That is what gives the outer life meaning. This
has a lot in common with creating and appreciating music which also is most
meaningful with deep listening. With my music I work with sounds like a painter
or sculptor works in their medium, layer upon layer to come up with the
finished artistic endeavor. I’m a synthesist in more ways than one because I
pull threads together from many different sources, places and feelings.”
The
Shimmering Land, released on Kumatone Records, can be purchased as a CD or
digital downloads at a variety of online sales including CDbaby, Amazon, iTunes
and many others. For more information about Meg Bowles and her music, visit her
website, megbowlesmusic.com.
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