Confluence

Sanctuary Songlist In the Garden of Lady Eve (full length) Narana's Dream (full length) Soul Etude (full length) Fond Farewell Esperanza Sonji's Waltz Andalusia (full length) Lady of the Lake Serenade for Juia Sanctuary Prayer Sanctuary-Reprise (full length)

Amber Moon Songlist Amber Moon Simple Rose (full length) Gleneden Woods (full length) Genevieve by the Sea Consolation Tree of Life Ariadne's Thread La Dolorosa Duende (full length) Innocence Wind Peace

All songs are copyrighted 1998, 2002 by Christopher Forrest McDowell & Jeff Defty. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction of songs is prohibited without confirmed email permission. Recorded at Neptune Studios in cooperation with Neptune Music. Contact Us for further information.

About Confluence

Confluence co-founders, Christopher Forrest McDowell and Jeff Defty have fostered a musical brotherhood for over twenty-six years. Their individual musical and performance accomplishments merge into one powerful synchronicity, as composers, arrangers and performers.

Confluence has developed a unique style, embracing and fusing classical, jazz and ethnic elements into a stirring, lyrical texture, with rich melodic lines riding on the wings of fascinating and satisfying harmonic changes. Indeed, it is this very quality of sophistication of compositional structure that weaves a strong thread in each song's tapestry. However, it is the improvisational nature of Confluence performances which perhaps draws the most visceral response from audiences. Listeners are often mesmerized by the nature in which group members create free-spirited melodies, harmonies, and solos of exquisite and adventurous lyricism.

Clearly, the focus of the relationship between ensemble members is to draw out the musical love affair possible between guitar, cello, and percussion. This instrumental combination has been explored very little in both classical and jazz idioms. The instruments converse intimately like monks by a river. They dance passionately with Spanish fever, find communion in prayer, then share laughter in spontaneous play.

Whether in concert performance, where song and spoken word interweave to arrest the soul's attention, or in the expanded arrangements of strings, winds, harp, and flute on their CDs, Confluence offers a place of musical sanctuary for the soul, an opportunity for renewal of spirit.

Brings almost fifty years of composing and guitar performance to the ensemble. His musical lyricism is driven by an aspiration to marry the deepest yearnings of the heart with the soul's desire to celebrate and contemplate life. This is shown at once in both his passionate and tender guitar renderings.

His early guitar instruction came at the hands of a gifted Italian concert pianist, and perhaps accounts for the full harmonic structure and melodic sophistication of his compositions. A prolific songwriter and writer, for the past 26 years he has focused primarily on pieces for small ensemble.

McDowell's dramatic storytelling, be it Hesse or Khayyam or the like, is both emotionally spontaneous and tender, as if the authors themselves were breathing back into life their own life's experiences and musings.

A scholar and philosopher (holding a PhD), he is also a nationally recognized and best-selling author in the fields of wellness care, spirituality, sanctuary and gardening. A longtime student of meditation, he lives with his wife Tricia on the beautiful 22-acre Cortesia Sanctuary outside Eugene, Oregon, USA.

Is a classically-trained cellist, composer and arranger, as well as a gifted storyteller. He has appeared with the Eugene Symphony and the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra. He is the 1999 recipient of the Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship for New Music. Defty's music bridges classical, jazz, electronic and world music idioms. He has composed critically-acclaimed music for dance, theatre, video, and concert performance. Increasingly, he is also being sought by other performers/artists for his keen ear and insights as a producer.

Defty has released, under the Neptune Music label, two recordings of original music, Vanish into Blue (regularly featured on the nationally-syndicated "Music from the Hearts of Space") and The Descent of Inanna.

Jeff's passionate cello playing comes both from knowing the craft of his instrument and allowing his free spirit the opportunity to take spontaneous flight, evoking the cello's lyrical qualities and unlocking its rich tonal pallette. The sensitivity in his compositions is borne out of the composer's craft, yet clearly mirrors the soul's deepest surrender through the emotional labyrinth of life. These archetypal journies appear frequently in his music, storytelling, and stage productions.

A children's librarian by vocation, Jeff lives in Eugene, Oregon, USA with his cat, Money Penny.

Audiences are often at a loss to describe how they are affected by a Confluence concert.

What listeners do know is that they have experienced a rich musical texture founded on sound classical, jazz, and ethnic influences. The resulting hybrid sound has often been called Romantic Instrumental, or Chamber Jazz. Some listeners have even characterized it as "Classical with a twist of lime," or a type of "Elegant jazz with a sensibility."

Indeed, it is the inspired flight of passion, tenderness, and romance that makes Confluence so magnetic. This is concert performance at its richest and deepest emotion, and audiences throughout the Pacific Northwest (USA) have begun to discover parts of their souls through the entrancing music.

As guitar, cellos, and percussion meld into a single instrument capable of romance, laughter, and lamentation, so the listener willingly follows in journey. Whether they are playing a carefully-crafted composition or taking flight on an improvisational excursion, the members of Confluence sense and anticipate each other's emotional and musical gestures so well, it is often difficult to tell what is planned and what is almost magical synchronicity.

The ensemble often creates concerts around themes: "Sanctuary," "My Spanish Heart," "Rivers of Light," to name a few. It is not uncommon for a concert to interweave original music, storytelling, and the poetry of great masters such as e.e. cummings, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Hermann Hesse, among others. Such concerts create a sense of intimacy between performer and listener. Often Confluence rounds out their ensemble with guest artists on flute, harp, or vocals.