Romayne Wheeler. Alhambra Concert

• MusicThe music on this CD is a special program designed by Romayne for this live event facing the Alhambra palace of Granada, Spain. It is a mixture of his own compositions and pieces from Gershwin, Schubert and Tárrega. His original pieces are influenced by the incredible natural environment where he lives and the traditional Tarahumara music that he is surrounded by.
  
  Romayne Wheeler is a concert pianist that has been living for over 20 years with the Tarahumara people in the area of the Copper Canyon of northern Mexico. Originally from California, trained in Vienna, he was invited by the Tarahumara to stay and live with them after many years of living in a cave studying their music that had never before been transcribed. The Copper Canyon area is one of the most remote places of the Americas. It is a mountain range made up of hundreds of canyons, three of which are deeper than the Grand Canyon. Romayne lives with a local Tarahumara community with his two grand pianos in a house perched on a cliff that is over 2000 meters high known locally as the Eagle´s Nest.
• SpaceThis recording took place in the gardens of Carmen de las Tomasas. It is a beautiful house that directly faces the Alhambra Palace of Granada. Located in the Albayzin, the ancient Moorish neighborhood just opposite the Alhambra, it opens its patios and gardens as a restaurant known as the Restaurante las Tomasas. We would like to thank Joaquin of Las Tomasas for hosting this special event.  www.lastomasas.com
  
  The reason for the choice of this space for this event is the realization of a dream. When Romayne was 9 years old he saw Andres Segovia perform in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was the Francisco Tárrega piece, Recuerdos de la Alhambra, that mystified him and made him decide at that moment that he wanted to become a musician. Since then he has been ending all of his performances with this piece. He asks the audience to us it as a meditation to think of all the good things that have brought them to the moment of the now.
  
  When Rafael, the creator of Wapapura, was on his second visit to the Copper Canyon, he traveled to visit Romayne. Under a lunar eclipse, sitting on the edge of a cliff that overlooks peaks and canyons of unimaginable depths, Romayne told the story of his relationship with the piece, Recuerdos de la Alhambra. Rafael who currently runs a guesthouse that faces the Alhambra palace in Granada knew that a seed had been planted. To bring Romayne to Granada and perform his signature piece, Recuerdos de la Alhambra, in front of the Alhambra Palace as an offering of thanks.
  
  This CD is that performance.
• EarthThe benefits from this CD go to support the work Romayne is doing with his local Tarahumara (Raramuri) community. More specifically, drought relief programs and a health clinic Romayne has helped build for the local community who previously had to travel days on foot to the nearest doctors.
  
  Romayne has been dedicating his annual world concert tours to support his non-profit, The Tarahumara Relief Fund. A non-profit that supports over 200 families in his area with education and health initiatives.
  
  The money made by the downloading of this CD will go directly to helping the Tarahumara who have been facing a terrible drought since 2010. This along with the invasion of their cultivable lands by narco-traffickers, has pushed many of them to starvation.