Artist and Musician WILLIAM CLOSE & THE EARTH HARP COLLECTIVE's 'Holidays' Album Now Available

WILLIAM CLOSE has traveled all over the world, amazing audiences with his unique, one-of-a-kind and entirely innovative musical instruments. WILLIAM--who's developed over 100 new types of instruments--now brings his highly original artistic vision to a collection of holiday classics. His new full-length album HOLIDAYS is available today, Tuesday, December 4, at www.williamcloseholidays.com and at all other digital retailers soon. These unique arrangements feature an instrument designed and built by WILLIAM himself, the Earth Harp, the world's largest string instrument.

"I have always wanted to create an Earth Harp holiday album," explains WILLIAM. "The Earth Harp has such magic to its sound and concept--I feel it is a perfect instrument to help convey the peace, joy, and sacredness of the holiday season. It is used to create the mysterious symphonic depth and sparkle in these gorgeous holiday arrangements."

Developed by CLOSE in 1999, the body of the Earth Harp rests on the stage and the strings travel out over the audience attaching to the back of the theater, turning the theater, concert hall, architecture, or landscape into the instrument. The giant long strings are played with violin rosin covered gloves. The Players run their hands along the strings creating beautiful cello like tones. CLOSE named the instrument Earth Harp because the first time it was installed, the strings ran from one side of a valley 1000 feet across to the other side, turning the landscape into a giant harp. The Earth Harp strings have stretched to the top of the Seattle Space Needle, to temples in Vietnam, in the famous Grand Theater of Macau, The Coliseum in Rome, amazing architecture in Hong Kong and India, the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center in the United States, just to name a few.

For HOLIDAYS, WILLIAM worked with Julian Schwartz and AnDrew Cohen of Art House Live along with well-respected and award-winning producers from music, film and television such as Grammy Award winner Ken Cummings (Celine Dion, Smokey Robinson, Les Paul tribute albums), Joel Douek ("The Wildest Dream," "Flying Monsters 3D," "Life") Jesper Kristensen (Wilson Phillips, Pete Anderson of Dwight Yoakam, Bryce Soderbergh of Lifehouse), acclaimed alternative rock duo The Controversy and producer/vocalist Lisbeth Scott (Shrek, Spiderman, Avatar, Iron Man).

"Over the years I have had the pleasure of performing with many gifted composers and musicians in diverse musical settings," WILLIAM shares. "I have brought together a very special group to join me on this collection of holiday classics. Film composers, vocalists and rock/pop artists join the sounds of the Earth Harp to create a spectacular album filled with peace, serenity and joy. What better an instrument to create holiday music on than the world's largest harp!"

Most recently, WILLIAM and the Earth Harp Collective--a team of extremely talented musicians, dancers, aerialists and artists--further pushed the boundaries of the performance experience when they finished third on NBC's hit talent competition "America's Got Talent." The group received massive praise and admiration from fans and all three judges. Watch here: http://youtu.be/G8rPxbuazOs and http://youtu.be/ddSUHBJHWME. From the overwhelmingly positive response on the show, WILLIAM was invited to perform an eight-week residency at The Palazzo in Las Vegas which has just been extended for another eight-weeks starting in January 2013.

WILLIAM's work explores the connection between architecture and music. Inspired by the Frank Lloyd Wright quote "architecture is frozen music," CLOSE creates musical installations that use the architecture as part of the instrument. Some of CLOSE's other instruments include, The Drum Orb, The Percussion Jacket, The Aquatar, the Wing Harp, and The Drumbrella to name a few.

Track Listing for HOLIDAYS:
1. "Carol of The Bells"
2. "Ave Maria"
3. "Little Drummer Boy"
4. "Silent Night"
5. "We Three Kings"
6. "Snowfall"
7. "Greensleeves"
8. "O Holy Night"
9. "Earth Prayer"
10. "Noche De Paz"

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