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Rege Behe While the New Age label encompasses a variety of sounds and styles, it is the source of endless frustration for many musicians who don't like the spacey or ethereal connotations it carries. Not Ottmar Liebert. "It's actually a great category to be in," Liebert says via cell phone as he walks the streets of New York City. "It's not very defined, and you can do what you want. It's almost fun to be in it." As one of New Age's most respected and lauded guitarists, it's easy to see why he is so comfortable in the genre. But to limit Liebert to this category is a mistake; his flamenco playing owes as much to classical guitar as anything else. And though that may seem to be an esoteric category, his 1990 debut, "Nouveau Flamenco," has gone double platinum. Yet, if not for a visit to Santa Fe, N.M. in 1986, Liebert still might be an unknown musician. "At the time, I wasn't able to combine all the different things I enjoyed. I wasn't able to connect them," he admits. "But there was this mariachi and flamenco thing going on in Santa Fe. I started playing classical guitar, and that served as a catalyst." Thus inspired, Liebert moved from Boston, where he was struggling with a series of forgettable day jobs while playing music at night, to New Mexico. There, an art gallery owner heard him and paid for the recording of "Nouveau Flamenco." Pockets of interest sprang up on the West Coast - and in Pittsburgh. "There was a guy from a public radio station in Pittsburgh who came out to Santa Fe on vacation and looked me up," Liebert recalls. "He said he needed a few copies to play on the radio, and I had to tell him to go to the gallery and buy a few. So I guess it was Los Angeles and San Francisco and Pittsburgh that really picked up on me first." Currently, Liebert is touring with an eight-piece band that incorporates flamenco with mariachi, bossa nova, Egyptian, Indian and Latin rhythms. While he's proud of his recordings (including his latest release, "Innamorare," inspired by a recent stay in Tuscany) he admits playing live enables him to expand his music. "Sometimes during a sound check, we'll come up with something and a three- or four-minute piece will become seven or eight minutes," he says. "You'll really be amazed if you come and see us." Somehow,
given all that goes into Liebert's music, that's easy to believe.
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