Publication: BURLINGTON FREE PRESS
'Being different' earns Essex musician a Grammy nomination'
by Brent Hallenbeck
Burlington Free Press
February 2012
Al Conti began his career as a performer not as a musician but as an actor in theatrical productions, commercials and a one-week stint on the soap opera “As the World Turns.” He began composing about 20 years ago, mostly to entertain himself. Gradually, one discipline gave way to the other.
“When music took over,” Conti said, “I kind of left acting behind.” Acting is difficult, he said, because to perform you have to get through “gatekeepers” who may or may not hire you for a job; it’s frustrating to be unemployed, he said, when you just want to express yourself as an artist. Music allows him to express himself on his own terms.
It’s hard to say if he could have won an Emmy or a Tony had he stuck with acting, but that move to music has definitely paid off. Conti, 44, is competing for a Grammy Award this weekend in the category of Best New Age Album against renowned jazz guitarist Pat Metheny. Conti will find out in the pre-telecast award ceremony Sunday whether his first Grammy nomination, for his 2010 album “Northern Seas,” will allow him to take one of those miniature golden gramophones home with him to Essex. “I think the nomination for me was a win. It’s huge,” Conti said last week during a conversation at Dobra Tea in Burlington. “I’m doing what I love. It’s telling me I’m on the right track.”
Always around music
Conti is uncomfortable being the center of attention — he said he’s an introvert who relates well to people one-on-one — yet knows he has to promote himself to keep his career thriving. He’s always been on the shy side, starting as a youth growing up in Argentina. He said he was in therapy as a child because he wasn’t social; at recess in school he’d stand by himself along a wall to be alone.
But as someone who sometimes has to listen to other people’s music to drown out the music he’s constantly creating in his head, Conti knows those moments alone with his thoughts shaped the person he is today. He said people tell him that, like new-age artists such as Yanni and Loreena McKennitt, he has a sound all his own. “I think it’s who I am as a person. I’ve always been different,” Conti said. “Sometimes being different is really a blessing.”
Conti’s family — his mother was a professional ballerina and his father is an architect and poet — fled political turmoil in Argentina when he was 12. “By 1980,” he said, “my parents had really had enough.” They bounced between Argentina, Italy and Florida before Conti settled permanently in the United States when he was 18. He moved to Vermont 14 years ago after visiting a friend and falling in love with the state. His parents followed him to Vermont, and live two doors down from him in Essex.
The creative nature of his family (his grandfather was a concert pianist) followed Conti practically from birth. “Since I was 3,” he said, “I told my parents I wanted to be a dramatic actor.”
Music was always there. When Conti was 2 or 3 years old his parents would say “Swan Lake” or “The Carpenters” and he’d find the corresponding album and put it on the record player. When he was 4 or 5, he remembers playing the 45-rpm single of B.J. Thomas’ “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” over and over and over again.
His professional music experiences started with three albums in quick succession — “Shadows” in 2006, “Poeta” in 2007 and “Scheherazade” in 2008. The latter, inspired by the Tales of the Arabian Nights, topped the new-age charts. He was happy with the success, but also stressed by it. He said to himself, “I don’t know how I did it, and how do I top this?”
Getting to work
Conti’s Grammy-nominated effort, “Northern Seas,” features many of the benchmarks of new-age music — a wistful, instrumental-only quality evoking a mystical place, in this case the Norse mythology of Odin, Thor and Loki. Conti composed and arranged the songs and played many of the instruments.
He recorded “Northern Seas” for Shadowside Music, at West Street Digital in Fairfield, a studio run by Andre Maquera, best known as the guitarist for big-in-the-‘80s Vermont rockers 8084. Conti said Maquera is so connected with his work that he’ll use his ideas 90 percent of the time, even if new-age music is not Maquera’s natural forte. “The results are amazing,” according to Conti. “New age is probably the most extreme (form of music) for him, and he does really well.”
Maquera doesn’t dispute Conti’s point about new-age music not being his thing. He noted that people have been known to dismiss Yanni and John Tesh for creating what some consider lightweight music. “When I set out to play guitar as a kid,” Maquera said, “I didn’t expect to work on a new-age album.” But his exposure to the variety of music that comes through his Franklin County studio, from country performers such as Keeghan Nolan to heavy-metal bands, has helped train his ear.
“I listen to so many things now,” Maquera said. “You start listening to music almost in a clinical way.” New-age music can be synthesized, ethereal and inorganic, Maquera said, but he set out to tether those sounds to real instruments and bring out the darker mythology that Conti’s Norse-influenced album aimed to reflect. “My whole credo has always been ‘serve the song,’” Maquera said. “Every song tells you what it wants.”
He served Conti well enough to help him earn a Grammy nomination. Conti was stunned when he heard about the nomination. “I think for about 30 seconds I felt nothing, I was numb,” Conti said. “Then it was like, ‘Got to get to work.’” He, his manager and publicist set out to spread the word on his website, Facebook and Twitter. The campaign for the Grammy Award was on.
“It’s almost like a high-school class-president thing,” Conti said, “and you really have to connect with people.” He’s a business-conscious musician who’s aware he needs to sell his image and his music and making sure the business and creative ends work in concert — an ironic term, as Conti is strictly a studio musician who does not perform in concert. “It’s very draining,” he said of touring. “It’s not the healthiest thing. There’s no money in it.”
Conti realizes his work requires a mix of music and business. “You’re a product. You cease to be a person,” he said. He tries to balance making the music that excites him with making music that he thinks will reach audiences. “You have to support yourself as an artist so you have to write what sells.” He knows all the business acumen in the world doesn’t help if he doesn’t connect with listeners. “I happen to compose something that works for the audience,” Conti said.
One and done
He has already started work on his next album. “Scheherazade had feminine traits," he said, "Northern Seas was more masculine and the next one, which could come out this fall, will return to a calm, feminine tone. “Northern Seas,” he said, highlighted his flexibility as an artist. “It really showcases what I can do,” according to Conti.
So much, in fact, that it led to his first Grammy nomination, and his life hasn’t been the same. “It’s been a landslide since then,” Conti said; “very overwhelming.” He attended an East Coast Grammy-nominee reception in New York City and met music luminaries such as jazz singer Kurt Elling and R&B impresario Jimmy Jam. He’ll be doing a few interviews in Los Angeles before the Grammy Awards, and more after if he wins. He’ll arrive at the broadcast ceremony in a limousine after receiving a spray tanning to make him look L.A. ready (“Who thinks of this?” he wondered). He’d rather be in front of his TV watching a DVD, he said.
Conti said he hasn’t really had the chance to think about how big it is to be nominated for a Grammy and rub elbows with musical giants. “I think I shut down,” he said. “I’ll think about it afterwards.” He’s not sure what his chances are of winning for Best New Age Album. “Based on the support I have — pretty good. But it can also be political.”
Maquera, who played guitar on “Northern Seas,” knows Conti faces a stiff challenge from the multiple-Grammy-winning jazz guitarist who’s entered in the new-age category. “The hardest thing is he’s up against Metheny,” Maquera said.
If he wins Sunday, Conti said he might consider not seeking any more Grammy nominations, to give other new-age musicians a chance at music’s biggest prize.
“My coffee table can only fit one,” he said. “And you have to dust them...”