Rainbow Road – Nancy Shoop – Wu
Rainbow Road the second release from violinist Nancy Shoop-Wu has been one of the various albums that I have used as the soundtrack for my morning workouts and meditations over the last few months. And it has been one of my favorites!
About Nancy Shoop-Wu
Nancy Shoop-Wu’s music is a wonderful blend of New Age , Hawaiian and classical music. Shoop-Wu started her musical journey at the age of nine in her home state of Connecticut. She came from a musical family. Her father played the trumpet and her mother the piano. She became determined to dedicate her life to music when her father passed away when she was nine years old.
Her road to becoming a professional musician began at the Hartt School of Music and continued at the Yale School of Music. At Yale she studied with renowned violin teachers Paul Kantor and Ida Karafian.During her student years she auditioned and received a position with the Filarmonica de Caracas in Venezuela. After graduation she joined various symphonies including: the New Haven Symphony, the Hartford Symphony and Orchestra of New England.But both her personal and musical life was altered when she joined the Honolulu Symphony and relocated to Hawaii.
While she was playing with the Honolulu Sympphony and falling in love with her new home, she was also expanding her musical horizons. She reconnected with Celtic and New Age music, and found love – Hawaiian music. Over the next few years these new and old influences started to blend inside this talented musician.
Nancy’s world changed again in 2009,m when the Honolulu Symphony went bankrupt. The bankruptcy of the symphony took away Nancy’s creative outlet. But it also inspired her to compose her own songs featuring the violin. Nancy finally found her unique voice as a composer through a blending of her love of New Age, Hawaiian and Classical music!
Rainbow Road and Beautiful Mana’o
Since then Nanacy Shoop-Wu has recorded two albums. Her first album was Beautiful Mana’o. The follow up album is Rainbow Road. Both of the albums were produced by Derek Nakamoto. Jeff Peterson and Ian O’Sullivan are featured on both of the albums. They are two of the most exclaimed Hawaiian slack-key guitarists. Rainbow Road was also a finalist for Hawaii’s Na Hoku Hanohano Award for Best Instrumental Album in 2016. The album that I have been listening to is a re-release of that album and includes some bonus tracks from Beautiful Mana’o
Bottom Line
Over the last few weeks I have fallen in love with this album. It is a very beautiful and tranquil album. I have often put it on and then just drifted. Of course the most impressive part of the album is Nancy’s wonderful violin. Nancy says this about her music…
“I wrote these songs to uplift and transport the listener’s heart beyond their daily existence to another world – the world of beauty and wonder that lies within us all”
I for one think that she accomplished just that on Rainbow Road. Give it a listen and let me know what you think!
Oh by the way Rainbow Road was number 5 on February 2017’s Zone Music Reporter Top 100 Radio Airplay Chart!
Links for the Further Exploration of the Music of Nancy Shoop-Wu
Artist’s Website
Facebook
YouTube
CDBaby
Here is Nancy playing the title track from Rainbow Road – great stuff and the landscapes aren’t bad either!!
