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Eight String Religion is a timeless masterpiece by composer/cellist David Darling.  The album combines David’s cello, piano and vocal improvisations with sound engineer/producer Mickey Houlihan’s nature recordings.  It features eight nature-oriented pieces that evoke the unity of nature, humanity and music. 

"...David Darling has concocted an elixir of skill, wisdom, love, and beauty that is truly nourishment for the soul."
- Ram Dass  

"The music is simple but never simplistic, and Darling's head is on his shoulders, even if it's soaring through the clouds."
- John Diliberto, Pulse! Magazine  

Artist Bio:

David Darling is a classically trained cellist who began his career as an elementary and secondary school teacher and conductor of band and orchestra.  He later taught music and served as conductor and faculty cellist at Western Kentuky University.  Then from 1969 to 1978 he played with the Paul Winter Consort, an extrordinarily progressive band for its time whose sound blended jazz with Brazilian, African, Indian and other world music.

Since he left the Consort he has dedicated himself to a solo performing and recording career, and to teaching music and improvisation.  In 1986 he co-founded Music for People, a non-profit educational, network that teaches and fosters improvisation as means of creative self expression.  For the past 10 years, Darling has also enriched the lives of thousands of young people through in-school programs in his work with Young Audiences, Inc.

Darling has collabarated on performances and recordings with dozens of musicians, among them Bobby McFerrin, Spyro Gyra, Peter Paul and Mary, Oregon, Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, and the innovative dance ensemble Pilololus.  Among Darling's film credits are his contributions to the movies "Until the End of the Earth" and "Far Away, So Close" by Wim Wenders as well as "Nouvelle Vague" and "Heat".

Review:

Blissful Emotion

"The world of David Darling is one where deep melancholy and light airiness commingle, where instrumental textures glide amongst waves of ambient synthwork and above all, the stirring strings of his cello lead you to a place of blissful emotion."  - Music Design In Review

Product SKU: WO-3202-EIGHTST