Peter Sterling: Sanctuary of Light
Harp Magic Music

At the age of thirty-three, Santa Monica-born Peter Sterling relocated to Sedona, Arizona; more significantly, it was in that picturesque setting in 1993 that his relationship with the Celtic harp began, his connection to the instrument intimated by the immediacy with which he took to it. Further to that, without any formal training or lessons to facilitate his command of the harp, he issued his first album, Harp Magic, only a year later. In the twenty-six years since, Sterling's amassed a devoted following and received acclaim for albums such as Shadow, Mist and Light (2005), Twilight Serenade (2013), and Magic Kingdom (2018); issued on his own Harp Magic Music label, Sanctuary of Light is the latest addition to that discography.

Sterling apparently conceived the recording in concert with a dream that directed him to create material that would be celestial in tone and would eschew overt rhythms and drums for free-floating melodies and sultry atmospheric textures. To realize the vision, he worked alone for over a year, fashioning its eight tracks from harp (acoustic and electric), keyboards, woodwinds (Native flute, recorder), piano, vocals, and percussion (chimes, bells, etc.). The result? Seductive harp-centred New Age music that's seductive in the extreme.

Representative of the release, hushed wordless vocals add to the luscious splendour of “The Light Within,” the arrangement otherwise augmenting harp strums with bells, flutes, and synthetic flourishes. While all eight pieces are bewitching, the prettiest might be “Pool of Love” for the gracefulness of its slow-motion lilt and the intensity of the harp expressions Sterling drapes across its beatific base. Selecting one setting over another is probably ill-advised, however, when others such as “Shores of Eternity” and “This Path I Walk” rival it for beauty.

August 2020