Michael Stearns
// composer, sound designer & soundtrack producerMICHAEL STEARNS is a composer, sound designer, and soundtrack producer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “Desert Moon Walk” (1977), “Ancient Leaves” (1978), “Sustaining Cylinders” (1978), “Morning Jewel” (1979), “Planetary Unfolding” (1981), “Light Play” (1983), and “Lyra Sound Constellation” (1983) were all available from Continuum Montage, “M’ocean [“Light Play” Re-Released]” (1984), “Chronos” (1984), “Plunge” (1986), and “Floating Whispers” (1987) were all available from Sonic Atmospheres, “Encounter” (1988), “Sacred Site” (1993), and “The Lost World” (1995) were all available from Hearts Of Space, “The Light In The Trees” (1996) was available from Amplexus, “Collected Ambient And Textural Works 1977-1987” (1996), and “Collected Thematic Works 1977-1987” (1996) were both available from Hearts Of Space, “Within: The Nine Dimensions” (1998), “Spirits Of The Voyage” (2000), and “The Middle Of Time” (2000) are all available from Earth Turtle, and “The Storm” (2001) is available from Spotted Peccary. Michael Stearns is a pioneering composer of ambient music, and soundtrack producer for Ron Fricke’s IMAX film presentations “Chronos” (1985), Sacred Site (1986), and “Baraka” (1992), many large format films, theatrical films, documentaries, commercials, and themed attractions.
Website: www.michaelstearns.com
Photo: Michael Stearns / MichaelStearns.com
Interview:
Until the last several hundred years, music emerged from all peoples of the Earth in an integrated or holistic way. Music-making was not a separate activity, but woven into the fabric of all aspects of what we call life, including what we now call spirituality. It is only within the context of recent civilization that we can ask about the spiritual significance of music, for we have now abstracted the “arts” and also abstracted “spirituality”. Music is a powerful thing. It can be a carrier for the “stories” that we tell ourselves, the symbolic overlay we use to continually re-create our lives as individuals, cultures, and as a species. It can re-trigger the unconscious patterns, stories, and emotions that we habitually live by and through.
Music can open doorways into what it means to be human beyond the limited definitions that have been repeated, perpetuated, and handed down through the generations. It can provide an immersive context to lose oneself in; to lose one’s sense of self, one’s sense of separation, waking up and participating in the unfolding “now”.
“Music can open doorways into what it means to be human beyond the limited definitions that have been repeated, perpetuated, and handed down through the generations.”
– Michael Stearns, composer, sound designer, and soundtrack producer
