Midnight Clear by Andreas Vollenweider

Midnight Clear is a special, even unusual album; a holiday album – in the widest sense. Some people may ask; 'Vollenweider is doing a Christmas album?’ He is known for to be a very free spirit when it comes to religion as well as politics. Andreas explains: "Although I opened our musical world for the first time to traditional and 'external' musical elements, this album is dedicated to the message of love, peace, hope and compassion, in the very same way as all my previous works are. For thousands of years, in all the cultures of the world, this message, wherever it came from, has been the most powerful source of strength and motivation to lay hands on the earth and do our part, in the liberation of the good in ourselves. As we all realize these days, this struggle has not lost any of its profound relevance. Religions have played, and still do, a highly controversial role in the history of our civilizations. Besides essential contributions to education, healthcare and social development, the religious institutions have, over thousands of years, also been responsible for a violently blasphemous abuse of power beyond imagination. This could be, and is for many people, reason enough for a fundamental rejection of religion in general. But it is high time to finally acknowledge, that we are by our nature profoundly spiritual beings, whether we like it or not. We will always be magnetically attracted by the miraculous. We will always have countless questions that our intellectual minds can not provide answers for, and the process of enlightenment will always be like touching the horizon; it slips further away the closer you think you get to it. It is time to focus on the content, on the essence of the message, which can be found in all existing religions of the world. There’s no need to create new doctrines. It is time to find ways to concretely incorporate these values into our lives. Regardless whether you are a Christian or not, alone the 'Sermon on the Mount' for example contains enough very valuable guidelines on how to ethically and spiritually organize a highly complex society such as ours. Let us not lose more time we don’t have. The quality of spirituality is reflected in how we live it. A sophisticated spiritual dialog is indispensable in the crisis management of today’s world. For thousands of years, we all have been taught a concept of man as a sinner, a primarily negative being. But only very little effort has been made to tell us about our positive potential, about our sophisticated ability to transform the negative into the positive, through our most profound human faculty of love and compassion. Music as the voice of the soul personally helps me to continuously remind myself of this potential and I am deeply grateful if it has this effect for others too.” ℗ 2006 Avaf Music, Switzerland