Peter Sterling: The Winding Way
Harp Magic Music

Peter Sterling titled one of the pieces on The Winding Way “Beauty Abounds,” but those words could just as easily apply to the fifty-minute release in general. As he has many times before, the harpist has crafted a spiritually replenishing New Age collection teeming with transporting sonorities and uplifting compositions. At this stage in his career, Sterling’s artistry comes naturally, and we are its humble beneficiaries.

The Santa Monica-born Sterling didn’t begin playing the harp as a youth; in fact, it wasn’t until after he moved to Sedona, Arizona that, in his thirties, he discovered the Celtic harp and initiated his musical journey. His connection to the instrument crystallized immediately, and without formal training or lessons, he recorded and released his first album, Harp Magic, a year later in 1994. Many others have materialized in the years since, among them 2013’s Twilight Serenade, 2018’s Magic Kingdom, and most recently 2020’s Sanctuary of Light.

Joining Sterling, who plays harp, keyboards, percussion, and violin, are two guests, cellist Hans Christian and flutist Richard Hardy (silver and bamboo). “Beauty Abounds” draws the listener into the album’s soothing embrace with graceful unfurls of harp strums and the hush of wordless vocal textures. Without sacrificing any of its delicacy, “Clouds and Sky” builds on that opener by expanding the instrumental palette with subtle electronic flourishes and tinkling chimes; if anything the second piece pulls one even more deeply into the music’s spellcasting domain. The arrangement expands again for “Deep Dive” when flute joins harp and percussion and still more in “Along the Way” with cello and flute both added. Later on an unidentified female guest adds spoken word narration to the prog-folk setting “The Elven Queen,” which the guests also help elevate. If the sadness wrought by the pandemic permeates the forlorn “Rose Petal Tea,” others, the pretty “Hope for Tomorrow” and gentle “A Love That Lasts” two examples, lift the spirits.

As much as the guests enhance the recording, the music’s never more potent than when the spotlight’s on Sterling’s harp, and his superior command of pacing and sound design is evident at every moment in the eleven settings. Created over the course of a year in the midst of the global pandemic, the consoling material on The Winding Way arrives at a time when it’s never felt more needed. Its sound paintings, recorded in Sedona, Arizona, are healing music at its best.

September 2021