Artist: Levi Chen
Genre(s):
New Age
Discography:
Liquid Gardens
Year: 1999
Tracks: 11
Levi Chen -- composer, guitarist and founder of the trio Celtic Zen (with harpist Lisa Franco and cembalist Michael Masley) -- is a first-generation Chinese-American world Health Organization, though born and brocaded in the Midwest, has lived in countries as divers as Taiwan, France, Italy, and Switzerland. Chen speaks v languages.
Chen was already a universe traveler (his home visited grandparents in Taiwan) by the clock time he began poring over guitar at long time decade. In 1981, the rebellious teenage Chen was sent to a boarding schooltime in Switzerland for his junior year. This, he says, turned his life around and expanded his horizons. Encouraged, he returned to the United States to look Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he studied graphic arts, architecture, and music with musicologist Roland Wiggins. In 1984, Chen exhausted 11 months attendance the Syracuse University Abroad in Florence, Italy. Here, he erudite to talk Italian and began to play music as a minstrel in the Piazza Signoria. In 1987, Chen stirred to Boston, where he got a chore at E.U. Wurlitzer Music & Pro Audio; this chore afforded him the opportunity to interact with music students from the Berklee School of Music and to acquire the technical side of music. In March of 1989, Chen returned to Taiwan for several months to pursue a dream of becoming the Chinese Jimi Hendrix; it was a unsatisfying chew the fat, disposed the timbre of the Asian pop scene. His following be active took him to the s of France where he played in a band called the Immigrants.
In 1990, Chen touched for good to Los Angeles. He founded his own judge, Yin Yang Records, in 1993. His first album in 1994 was Liquid Gardens: Tao for solo acoustic and galvanising guitar. Liquid Gardens: Haiki Moon featured Chen on the guitar, fretless bass, Chapman stick, and gu zheng. 1995's Meditation of My Soul showcased Chen's guitar/gu zheng duets. In 1997, Chen released Celtic Zen, likewise the name of the mathematical group which includes harper Lisa Franco and Michael Masley on cymbalom. Ten guest musicians helped contribute to the album's unique wakeless -- all acoustic leave off for the Stratocaster guitar.
Chen's two main instruments ar the Fender Stratocaster guitar (circa 1976) and the gu zheng, a Chinese tool similar to the Japanese koto, just having steel strings. Through long time of experimentation, Chen has managed to mimicker the gu zheng sound on the guitar and vice versa; through use of delayed echoes, he tin can play both instruments at once in a call-and-response style. Chen canful also create other sounds on his guitar: whales and dolphins, cello, erhu (Chinese fiddle), and other synthesizer sounds. Chen is likewise proficient on Chapman stick, acoustic guitar, fretted and fretless bass, synthesist, and pianissimo.
With his long, flowing black hair, Chen resembles Kitaro in appearance. Chen silent performs long hours as a street player and considers music-making his signifier of meditation. As to his unearthly beliefs, Chen comments, "I believe in LIFE, truth, beaut, peace, God, and zilch. I'm a Romantic Zen Taoist Rasta."
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