Burlington, VT (Top40 Charts/ B Company Official Website) "I'm grateful for this incredible opportunity to share my music with others around the world," said Al Conti on learning of his 2012 GRAMMY nomination. "I appreciate this recognition of my music by The Recording Academy and by my talented peers. I am thrilled and honored by the nomination."
Conti is a composer, arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist based near Burlington, Vermont. The myths of the Norse come to life in the independent recording artist's GRAMMY®-nominated album Northern Seas. This is Conti's fourth album, and contains eleven original New Age/World-fusion pieces that draw on ancient Norse mythology while weaving in modern sensibilities. As with his previous award-winning album, Scheherazade, Conti has taken well-known tales, this time from the mystical lands of the north that originated during Scandinavia's Viking Age, and woven music around themes and images. By combining ancient and exotic instruments (kantele, Jew's harp, hurdy gurdy, pump organ, accordion, and tribal drums) with modern ones (piano, violin, cello and both acoustic and electric guitar), Conti has created a mythical landscape that will carry the listener to another time and place, one cloaked in veils of mist when the gods ruled over harsh Nordic lands.
"While the Norse myths, much like many a Shakespearean tragedy, do not really end well, I chose to spin this a little and end the album on a note of hope," explains Conti. Of the "crossing-over" themed final song "The
Rainbow Bridge" he shares "It was especially poignant for me due to the loss of my 23 year-old nephew to Leukemia soon after the release of my third album Scheherazade. During that year, I saw many around me who left this world and others who were fighting to stay."
Conti says he enjoyed working with a roster of talented contributors on the album, including
Hannah Beth Crary (Fiddle),
Francesca Genco (Vocalist), André Maquera (Guitarist - Sound Engineer), Tim Cummings (Celtic Whistle). Clips from the album can be heard online at www.alconti.net, and it can be purchased in full on Amazon, iTunes and CDBaby.com
Northern Seas' made Amazon's Top 10 list for Best New Age Albums of 2010 and reached #2 in the Zone
Music Reporter's Top 100 chart for October 2010. His album Scheherazade topped the Zone
Music Reporter Top 100 Chart at number 1 for three consecutive months, in October, November and December of 2008. The album also garnered four ZMR Lifestyle
Music Awards nominations, including Album of the Year, and won Best World Album of 2008. Scheherazade also headed many radios 'Top 10' and 'Best of' lists,' as well as charting #5 on the ZMR's Top 100 Airplay Chart for 2008. His album Poeta was used as part of NPR's fundraising efforts in 2007 and his recording 'Quest for Orpheus,' from the same album, received a "Best of 2007" Award from Mystic Soundscapes Radio.
This coming January 2012, Suzanne Doucet of Only New Age
Music will represent Conti at MIDEM to seek international distribution deals for his last three albums Northern Seas, Scheherazade and Poeta. She can be reached for appointments in advance, or at the show via
[email protected].
Conti, who speaks English, Italian and Spanish, has traveled widely and has lived in South America,
Europe and the United States. As an actor, he has appeared on television shows including the CBS daytime drama "As The World Turns," in films, in numerous radio and television commercials, and on-stage in theatre productions in cities including New York City, Philadelphia, Tampa and Buenos Aires. Born and raised in Argentina, Conti comes from a family of artists with notoriety in many fields. Conti, who has composed music all his life, released his first album, Shadows, in 2006, Poeta, in 2007 and the critically acclaimed, award-winning Scheherazade in 2008, followed by Northern Seas in 2010. He is currently at work on his next album slated for 2012.
Conti's childhood was full of artistic expression. His grandfather was a concert pianist, his mother was a professional ballerina, and his father is an architect, published poet and university professor. Al's family tree also includes the famous Argentinean writer and politician
Miguel Cané, who held numerous political offices, notably as Argentine minister of external affairs and of the Interior and Mayor of the City of Buenos Aires. On his mother's side, Al is also a relative of the Necchi family that founded the famous sewing machine company.
In 2008, Conti joined
Kevin Bacon,
Jessica Alba, Will & Grace's
Shelley Morrison and other celebrities lending his name to the Until There's A Cure foundation to help raise funds for HIV/AIDS awareness and research. He also supports The Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation and the Alzheimer's Association.
Northern Seas was released on Conti's own Shadowside
Music label on October 5, 2010. He is managed by
Kevin Manion, and represented by publicist Beth Ann Hilton of The B Company, reachable via bethhilton(at)theBcompany.com. The 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards are on Feb. 12, 2012, taking place at Staples Center in Los Angeles and airing live on CBS from 8-11:30 p.m. (ET/PT).
Conti will be in Los Angeles and available for interviews and guest appearances during the week of the event; he is a composer, arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist, and a voting member of The Recording Academy (GRAMMY®).
