As you listen to Gandalf’s music, you know exactly why this “painter of musical landscapes” chose his name, years before J.R.R. Tolkien’s cult-epic Lord of the Rings captivated filmgoers around the world. Austrian by birth, Gandalf has traveled widely through Europe, North and South America and Asia. The more cultures he has come in touch with, the more he has been touched by the realization that far more things unite than separate the various peoples on our planet. His goal in composing and recording is to create music that dissolves boundaries.

Gandalf’s music is inspired by the beauty of nature and by the wisdom and myths of various cultures. He tells sound stories and describes moods and magical moments that point to other realities behind the scenes in this fast-paced modern world. He wants us to discover our incomparable and individual selves as we relax and “lose” ourselves in the listening. The music is intimate, tender, rich with grandeur and always heart opening.

Gandalf plays many and varied instruments (acoustic and electric guitars, sitar, saz, charango, bouzouki, balaphon, piano, synthesizers and sample-keyboards, and various percussion), blends acoustic with electronic and spherical sounds and weaves folk-elements into symphonic structures to create his unmistakable and unique style. He has worked with international artists, including former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett, Tunesian vocalist and oud player Dhafer Yossef and English cellist and vocalist Emily Burridge a.k.a. White Horse, whom he met while on a concert tour in Brazil. Gandalf has also written music for theatre and film. Although Gandalf has international recognition, his recordings have been primarily released in Europe. Real Music is pleased to bring Gandalf’s Between Earth and Sky to our listeners in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Interview: Dmitry Shakin interviews Gandalf

Dmitry Shakin Gandalf interview aired on Shakin’s “New Era” radio program, Vladivostok Broadcasting Corporation, Russia September 2008

Hello, Gandalf, and thank you very much that you've found some time to answer my questions.

1. Hello, Dimitry. Thank you very much for inviting me to do an interview with you and answer a few questions for the listeners of your program.

Let's start with your musical roots. How did you find your way to music?

2. My musical roots. Well. On one side I grew up listening to rock and pop music of the 60s and also already played in bands when I was 14, and performed on stage and played music from "Beatles" and "Stones" and all the groups that came up those years.

On the other side I loved instrumental music since I was a child actually: I liked to listen to symphonic peaces, I liked to listen to sound tracks from movies, like Ennio Morricone's, western scores and stuff. And also I liked the group called "The Shadows" from England that played instrumental songs on their guitars. I loved to listen to symphonic pieces by Russian composers as well; my favorites were Tchaikovsky, Rakhmaninov and Korsakov. Later on, on the 70s bands like "Genesis", "Yes" or "King Crimson" who had influences from classical music as well in their compositions, in their style, influenced me a lot on my way of finding my own kind of music.

I specially liked style of guitar players like Steve Hackette who played with "Genesis" for years and I had a chance to work with him in the 90s when we recorded an album called "Gallery of Dreams". It was a great experience for me actually to work with him and met him as a really friendly person. It was like finding a connection to my musical roots then.

In the 80s there have also been artists like Vangelis, Jean-Michelle Jarre or "Tangerine Dream" who worked a lot with electronic instruments. They all inspired me to some instant and my musical way, I was able to buy Minimoog synthesizer, and I really loved the melotrone this time, and I bought a melotrone and recorded a couple of albums with the melotrone.

During the early years of my career my music was often compared with Mike Oldfield, and of course he had some influences as well. He played and recorded most of the instruments by himself, and did the albums on his own, and this was what I did at this time. And this has been my favorite way of working up to these days. Mostly I work alone, just on my own; sometimes my son contributed me on the percussion, sometimes I work with other musicians especially on stage for concert and stuff, but most of the time I spend alone in my studio composing, arranging and playing the music by myself.

When I was listening to your albums, I was surprised: your music is incredibly beautiful and harmonic. What stimulated you to create it? What (or who) inspires you to create this music?

3. Basically the source of inspiration for my music is life itself. There are so many experiences that stimulate me to write music. I've had music on my mind since I was a child. When I was playing out in free nature when I was watching the clouds, I was watching the animals and beauties of nature. Nature is very important for me: I live in a very green area which is called The Vienna Woods near city of Vienna and I take my walks almost every day and clears my mind, gets me back into balance and that's what I need to create the harmonious kind of music I do. I like to travel and spend some time in different places of pure nature. I like to travel to Mediterranean Sea, to some Greek Island or to Croatia. And always I take a guitar with me and some little Walkman where can I record my ideas and sometimes really come into some very special creative and inspired moods.

If I were asked to name my favorites of your albums, I'd name, without hesitation, a beautiful dreamy ballad "Rhythm of Tides" from Colors of a New Dawn album and a "Silent Joy" from Sacred River. Tell us the history of their creation.

4. This is not very easy to answer. You know I have done like 30 albums throughout the last 27 or 28 years, and if you ask me for my favorites, it's like if you ask me which one of my children is my favorite.

I know there are some albums that turned out to be really special; for example, "Symphonic Landscapes" which was a piece I've written for 60-piece symphonic orchestra and performed also live in really famous Vienna Concert Hall. And there has been, as I mentioned before, the album with Steve Hackette, "Gallery of Dreams". And I do think that the latest works I did for Real Music, they probably come closer to my musical vision than ever before.

I really+ I think I was able to capture a lot of harmony, peace, silence and breathing with this music and that's probably what you can feel when you listen to pieces like "Silent Joy", or "Rhythm of the Tides". When writing "Rhythm of the Tides" I had on mind a walk on very wide and open seashore, and I recorded the guitar actually in one piece after I had taken a walk of two or three hours to the woods and I came back and I thought I was in the mood for recording, and went downstairs into my studio which is in the basement of my house. And I recorded this guitar and after then I listened to this and I thought this was really something special.

"Silent Joy" was basically inspired by the story "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse. The fairy man sitting by the river and listening to the sound of the water and someday he realizes that there's everything, the whole universe, is just in the sound of the water and he hears the universal sound OM and his face becomes bright and his eyes become peaceful and filled with joy.

Tell me who have been some of your influences throughout your music career?

5. I always had on mind to create kind of like new world music - music that dissolves boundaries between musical categories, and boundaries between different cultures and countries. And in my music you will find influences like from Irish folk music, also from Greek music. I have a bouzuki. I play the bouzuki occasionally on my compositions. From the Orient - I travel to India twice and bought a sitar, and used the sitar for my works. I think that music is really a universe language and+ Also I see it from the feedback I get from people all over the planet. It seems+ it appears that music really reaches the hearts of people over the world, no matter what color of their skin or what culture they belong to.

Your new albums are released by Real Music. This recording company has always been distinguished by a good music taste. What made you decide to sign with Real Music?

6. Well, I was working together with different record companies, record labels in Europe. I was always watching the musical scene in the United States, and I found that there are quite some labels that are specialized in exactly the music I was doing all over the time. And I knew there was quite an audience over there for this kind of music. In the early 90s I was working together with a small label in Oregon. And they released some of my music in the U.S., and I had quite a real resonance, real great feedback and so I made contact with Real Music one day, and they were interested in my works, but by the time I was engaged to some record company over here, so I wasn't able to sign a contract with them. But when my contracts over here had terminated, one day I sent them a tape of new works and they were excited and so we came to work together.

Do you remember that moment when you heard your composition by radio for the first time? What were your feelings? What song was it?

7. I really remember that night: it was in 1981. I just had released my first album "Journey to an Imaginary Land" and late at night the phone was ringing and the friend was calling me up and said: "It's on the air! It's on the air!" And I turned on the radio on the station he told me, and they played "The Peaceful Village" from the album. And I was really excited and I thought: "This is the beginning. Now people are able to listen to my music all over the place".