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PGM 831 "PIANISSIMO" : Week of Feb. 29th...

Sitting in front of a nine foot concert grand piano...is like sitting at the wheel of an expensive luxury sedan.

Ahhh, the smell of fine materials.
The sheen of black lacquer.
The quality of a finely designed machine.

Let's see:
The leather piano bench?...the leather seat.
The ivory keys?...the polished steering wheel.
The view out the window?...infinite driving possibility.
The view over the strings?...an infinite road to pure musical imagination.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we put ourselves in the gentle hands of musicians who drive the piano into contemplative soundscapes, on a program called PIANISSIMO. Music is by STARR PARODI, DANA CUNNINGHAM, VICTOR SPIEGEL, MICHAEL HARRISON, ROBERT BRUCE, RICK COX, MICHAEL HOPPÉ, and GARY MALKIN.

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Server failure, Thursday 2/28

The HOS web server had a hard disk failure Thursday afternoon. It took all night to repair the server and restore our files, but everything should be running normally now. We will continue to closely monitor the situation today and make any additional adjustments necessary.

We apologize for the interruption in service and are taking steps to prevent or radically reduce the time we can be down in the future.

— The HOS Web Team

PGM 114R "ODIN'S DREAM" : Week of Feb. 22nd...

This week we continue our retrospective series "25 YEARS IN SPACE," celebrating our 25th year of national broadcasting. We've selected 25 shows that give an overview of the HEARTS of SPACE series and our style of ambient, space, and contemplative music.

This time we journey to far north soundworlds with a 1986 program inspired by Nordic mythology called ODIN'S DREAM. The theme and title of our featured album "Wunjo," by GILES REAVES, was inspired by the Nordic gods chronicled in RALPH BLUM's "Book of Runes." Additional music is by ERIK WØLLO, RAY LYNCH, and JONN SERRIE.

The far north sound of emptiness...and fullness...on this 25th anniversary transmission of Hearts of Space.

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PGM 830 "A DAVID DARLING RETROSPECTIVE" : Week of Feb. 15th...

If all the press about the troubles in the music business has you concerned, consider the career of cellist DAVID DARLING to revive your spirits.

Born in Elkhart, Indiana in 1941, Darling began his career as a music educator. He joined The PAUL WINTER CONSORT in 1970, and stayed with the pioneering classical/jazz/world fusion ensemble on and off until 1987. At the same time, he played cello in the Nashville Symphony and worked as a studio session player in Nashville when we wasn't touring.

In 1979 Darling met German producer and ECM Records founder MANFRED EICHER. His first solo album JOURNAL OCTOBER was released by ECM in 1980. Over the next 25 years, he played and recorded with an absolutely stellar roster of jazz and classical musicians on ECM, did over a dozen highly praised collaborations and group projects, worked with writers and directors (including WIM WENDERS and JEAN-LUC GODARD) on film scoring projects, and continued his music education activities by co-founding Music For People , a non-profit organization promoting individual expression through music and improvisation.

To call him tireless, inspired and inspiring doesn't even  begin to cover it. Yet he remains one of the warmest, most open people you'll ever meet, a quality that comes across instantly in his solo concerts.

Over the last 25 years, DAVID DARLING has been one of the foundation artists of HEARTS of SPACE, appearing on 43 programs, starting with our debut program in 1983. With its gentle open-hearted lyricism, simplicity, and patience, his music achieves a rare depth and humanity.

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PGM 829 "GALACTIC TRAVELER" : Week of Feb. 8th...

We've never found a good explanation for it, but there's something about the intangibility of electronic sounds that naturally link them to images of space. From early PINK FLOYD, to classic German spacemusic, to the Ambient sound sculptors of today, space...is the place you wind up.

Of course, acoustic instruments can make space and ambient music, but it takes the right sound environment and a lot of extra work. Electronic sounds seem to originate in space, and provide the perfect sonic vehicle for traveling through it. On this transmission of Hearts of Space we do just that, on an electronic spacemusic excursion called GALACTIC TRAVELER.

Music is by DAVE FULTON & GILES REAVES, PSICODREAMICS, A PRODUCE, STEVE ROACH, EVAN BARTHOLOMEW, and from France, PHILLIPE EMMANUEL GUEBLE.

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PGM 828 "DEEP WORLD" : Week of Feb. 1st...

We live in a time of extreme contrasts: while one part of the world enjoys unlimited material comfort, another suffers strife, hunger and disease. High tech magic is just a border away from descendents of stone-age tribes. Ancient conflicts divide neighbors, while a global economy links nations half a world apart.

Propelled by these contrasts, today music floats freely around the globe, cross-pollinating and gene-splicing the sounds of cultures from primitive to sophisticated. In the midst of this astonishing diversity sits a new breed of composer: conscious of tradition but not limited by it, transmitting the deep soul messages of their culture across time and space with a new freedom of creative expression.

Classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, for example, draws musicians from an array of Asian and Middle Eastern cultures into fluid collaborations with the orchestra, while solo artists from many countries invent new contexts for the ancient instruments of their homelands.

On this edition of Hearts of Space, music by STEPHAN MICUS, DJIVAN GASPARYAN, KAYHAN KAHLOR, HANS CHRISTIAN and LUDOVICO EINAUDI, on a program called DEEP WORLD.

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Radio Channel update

New playist today:

01    822     RESTRAINT   subtle, lyrical Nordic spacejazz
02    821     LOVELY THUNDER   foggy keyboards and dark ambient electronics
03    820     SPECTRAL VOICES   the ghostly world of harmonic overtone singing
04    802     ARGUABLY POST-AMBIENT   new waveforms from the international electronic soundscape
05    791     NORDIC SOUL   a far north spacejazz and new music journey
06    799     MESSENGERS OF PEACE   music from the Tibetan diaspora
07    808     ATLAS DEI   Robert Rich's music for the art film ATLAS DEI
08    790     INTERSTELLAR   a cosmic electronic journey
09    753     AURORA   a winter journey in the polar regions
10    728     THE EDGE OF THE WORLD   an ambient-electronic journey
11    713     INVOKING THE MUSE   the timeless, heartfelt sound of the female voice
12    620     THE GLASS PIANO   an hour of wintry piano soundscapes
13    664     DARK WISDOM   cello alchemy and the dark emotions
14    652     ICELANDIA   tundra music from Scandanavia, Iceland and Alaska
15    616     NETHERTRONICA   wandering in the soundworlds of ambient cool
16    608     DISTANT SPIRITS   ambient soundscapes for the Native American cedar flute
17    601     FRAGILE DIALOGUES   an East-West contemplative soundscape
18    597     THE CONTEMPLATIVE GUITAR   quiet, acoustic, mostly solitary guitar
19    594     SLOW MUSIC FOR FAST TIMES   the worthy cause of quality stress reduction
20    566     SYNTHETIC PLEASURES   99.44% pure all-electronic waveforms
21    549     THE RAPTURE OF METALS   contemplative percussion and its electronic descendents
22    604     HARMONIC HARBOR   the spacious world of the contemplative piano
23    551     WUNJO REVISITED   Giles Reaves' spacemusic classic WUNJO
24    550     A NORTHERN PLACE   music from Arctic and mountain spaces
25    548     COLDBURN   a journey into the implacable heart of winter
26    546     NORTHERN NIGHTS   a Scandinavian winter's journey
27    542     MNEMOSYNE   spotlight on the album by Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble
28    522     WAVELANDS   fresh new electronic spacemusic waveforms