Meet Peter Sterling | Musician and composer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Peter Sterling and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Peter, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I was born and raised in Santa Monica. The southern California lifestyle definitely influenced who I am. A lifelong, surfer, skateboarder and skier. I love the outdoor lifestyle that Southern California afforded me. Growing up in the 60s and 70s the beaches and waves were a lot less crowded back in those days. It was the start of the skateboarding revolution in the early 70s with the advent of the urethane wheel. I was there riding the concrete wave with many of the top skateboarding stars of the day. I come from quite a prominent family of Southern California. For many years, we had a listing in the southern California bluebook. My great grandfather Oscar who was a well-known and successful capitalist in downtown LA introduced President Taft at the Biltmore Hotel in 1910. My mother was a real socialite and was very involved in many Republican political movements, and also on the team with Las Floristas headdress ball that happened every year at the Biltmore. My grandmother, my father, and my sister, and I all attended the university of Southern California. But after two years of university, I was feeling restless and unfocused and wanted to explore other options for me as a young man of 20 years old. That’s when I decided to drop out of school and head off to Aspen Colorado and become a ski bum. My life would never be the same!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’ve always been an artist all of my life. I had a vision in a church at 6 years old of being a stained glass window maker. As a teenager I became an apprentice of a master stained glass artist and have created beautiful stained glass windows ever since. I also showed talent with music as a young child but music wasn’t a big part of my life until I entered into my 30th year. It was at that time while on spiritual vision quest in the breathtaking scenery of Sedona, Arizona, where I immersed myself in the silence of the ancient canyons. During this time I lived in my Volkswagen camper van for three years. My inner voice was guiding me to “be still and know that I am God“ or silence is golden“. I was guided to immerse myself into the supreme tranquility and stillness of the outback ancient canyons. I would sit and meditate for hours, listening to the supreme silence and going deep inside my soul. I had many transcendental and mystical experiences during this time. But ultimately what happened to me was that within the silence I began to hear the subtle strains of some sort of music. It seemed like symphonic music floating on the air within the forest. I thought maybe somebody was playing symphonic classical music somewhere and I was catching a bit of it on the wind. But then I realized no, what I was hearing was of a divine origin. As I tuned in and listened the sound became louder and to my astonishment it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. It sounded like choirs of angels singing. Ultimately, I was taken out of my body up into the light where I beheld an incredible vision of angels, playing harps and angelic choirs singing heavenly sounds that touched me deep in my heart and soul and brought tears to my eyes. I had never heard a sound as beautiful as this and it made my whole body quiver and shake and tears spontaneously come to my eyes. Ultimately I made contact with a group of angels that told me my life‘s purpose was to play the harp and channel this angelic sound on the harp and bring a very special music to earth at this time of the great awakening. Through magical synchronicity, a harp came into my life and only 10 months later without any formal lessons. I made my first recording Harpmagic, which was nominated for string album of the year in the Indie Awards in 1994 and secured for me and international recording contract with an independent record label. It has been 30 years since the release of my first record Harpmagic And my most recent album, Mystic Voyager has received many award nominations around the world and been at the top of the international radio charts. I’m grateful for it all.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I live in beautiful red rock, country of Sedona, Arizona. We are surrounded with Majestic and breathtaking scenery every where you look. Often times friends come to visit me here and one of my favorite things to do is to take them out in my blue Jeep to some of my secret spots out in the distant and ancient canyons. I love exploring the ruins of the Native Americans, who lived here 1000 years ago. I often will take a small harp with me and go up to a Rocky promontory with my friends and hold my harp up towards the sky, and the wind will play it and create the most heavenly sound. It’s a very healing, otherworldly sound, and often brings tears to the eyes of those who hear it for the first time. Of course, after that we will probably stop into the Chocolate tree organic restaurant, and have an elixir and a sumptuous vegan vegetarian dish to satisfy our hunger. And then from there we might go have a float in an isolation tank or go have a foot massage or even a Photon Light bath and then perhaps a crystal bowl sound healing later on that evening to top off our day. All in all, Sedona is a magical place for spiritual seekers, to have all sorts of magical and mystical unique experiences for their body, mind and soul. This is what I love to share with friends that come from all over the world to visit.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There have been several people that believed, and had faith and saw my talent and wanted to support me and encourage me to believe in my dreams. First and foremost was my dear Irish grandmother Lucie, who as young child would whisper in my ear “Peter listen to your inner voice”. My grandmother was very spiritual, and this guidance helped to connect me with that small still voice inside that has been guiding me throughout my life. In regards to my achievements with my music career, I wanted to thank Lyon and Healy harps out of Chicago, who believed in me in my early days and sent me free of charge their new prototype electric grand concert harp. They let me use it for six months and I recorded my second album Gypsy Road with it. And thirdly, there was an angel that came into my life. Her name was Betty. She wrote me a letter after listening to my music on my record, called Out of the Blue. She told me how this music had helped lift her out of depressions had after her husband of 25 years had died . She was so moved and touched by the effect of my music. She asked me if there was anything she could do for me. She was a wealthy widower and wanted to help me with my music career. She ended up paying for my first radio promotion of my album. Harp Dreams. The year was 2005. Harp Dreams went to number one on the international New Age radio charts for two months in a row and that really set my music career off on a new trajectory. There are many more that helped me along the way. As a result, I do my best to pay it forward. Whenever I see a struggling artist with a big vision and a big dream and real talent. I love giving what I can to help them realize their dreams as well.

Website: www.harpmagic.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peter.sterling/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HarpMagic/

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sedona-sacred-land-journeys-sedona?osq=sedona+sacred+land+journeys

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6ikMlJji_DC4DJUzXwBx6Q