Why do I bring this up? A woman recently commented to me how sad it was that we were not Christians. This surprised me greatly. I asked her why she would say that. She said well obviously since you compose “new age” music you are not Christians. Wow!! On the contrary – we are. I was curious if this lady’s viewpoint was a common one, and if so, how this happened? Why is this type of music being thought of as Unchristian?

I doubt the classification “new age” will be going away any time soon. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences still calls it “new age” and there is even a Grammy Award for new age music. iTunes calls it “new age”. Amazon still lists a “new age” genre.

But what exactly does “new age” mean? Wikipedia has an exhaustive and interesting page on the origins of new age music at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age_music. But I still did not find the answer to my question until I looked at the “new age SPIRITUALITY” page on Wikipedia.
Although the term “new age” was first used in 1809 by William Blake, it wasn’t until the early 2000′s that the concept of “new age spirituality” was condemned by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. Even though new age music had little to do with actual new age spirituality practices, it had apparently been condemned as well.

Sadly, it was brick and mortar music stores that lumped dozens of genres of music under the “new age” moniker simply because they did not want to deal with them. Think about it – Enya and Vangelis were originally in the “Pop” bins – not new age. But then along came Celtic music and Native American music and ambient, electronica, world, chillout, space music and jazz crossover (among many others). What’s a little old record store to do? And so the “new age” bin became the melting pot – the catch-all to avoid having to keep all of these genres clearly separate. And I totally empathize! Truly there are dozens of “sub-genres” of new age. There was no way to keep track of it all. But you know what? The brick and mortar stores are gone and we now have computers. Why not embrace all the micro-genres of music?

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology to build the world’s first bionic music store.

Set list:

1. Bliss
2. Summer of 300 years
3. Dance With A Princess
4. Sunny Day
5. Starwalkers
6. Rays of Light
7. Land of Forever
8. Spirit Moves
9. Stella Maris
10. Cycle of Time
11. Flight of the Swan
12. Deep Still Blue
13. Mirage
14. Free To Fly

CD: Damayanti Artist: 2002 Contact: www.2002music.com Perhaps it wasn’t Sgt. Pepper who taught the band to play, but it was just about 20 years ago today that recording artists Pamela and Randy Copus, known collectively as 2002, began their musical career together. Looking back over that time they have created an impressive legacy that includes 14 albums – 9 of which have been on the Billboard Charts for a total of 270 weeks during the past 10 ye … Read More

via Music and Media Focus

I have often been asked which album is my favorite. I have always responded that choosing one would be like favoring one child over another – impossible. But truly I have to say I am extremely happy with this new album. It’s special. I’ll never tire of listening to it and remembering how much fun we had making it happen (against so many odds). Plus for the first time our little girl was part of it. She is only 7 and has such an angelic voice. You’ll be hearing more from her in the future for sure!

Wings II – Return to Freedom placed second for an award,

Beth Shirtz, Garrett Davenport, Pamela Copus, Randy Copus, Liz Doan and David Arkenstone.