Steven Halpern

Born in New York, New York in 1947,
Steven Halpern would go from young jazz cat to the father of New Age music. Bored
with his jazz career by the end of the 1960s, Halpern relocated to the west
coast where he began to explore creating music designed to make people relax,
focus, and be more healthful. His first album in this new style, 1976’s Spectrum
Suite, ignored rhythmic patterns and focused on beautiful harmonics played
on electric piano. He released it on his own record label and marketed the
album in non-traditional retail settings, and even with these humble
beginnings, the album became widely considered the birth of New Age. He released
over 90 albums over the next forty years including 1988’s Crystal Suite,
1993’s Enhancing Sensual Pleasure, 2006’s Music for Healing &
Unwinding, and 2012’s Grammy nominated Deep Alpha. In addition to
his musical endeavors, Halpern would become one a spokesman for what he called “sound
healing.” He has written books and articles, as well as spoken, about his work
and the potential for sounds to heal and harm the mind and body.