Valrock Music Presents: The Debut of Valerie Romanoff and Vitamin V, and the Release of the New CD, “Healing Music for Massage, Meditation and Transformation”
I am back in New York after spending 2 weeks in Sedona, Arizona both preparing for and then relaxing after my CD Release Show. I have been giving much thought to how I want to post and write about the experience; the evolution and preparation, the formation of a new band, the bonding and camaraderie of everyone involved during the entire weekend’s events, and or course, the performance itself. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there is enough material to write an entire book; which I might do someday, as I have been journaling throughout this whole process!
Today is Saturday March 13, 2010 and I am back home in New York, sitting in front of a beautiful fire and watching the rain falling and snow melting up in Northern Westchester. A good day to start my story.
I log onto Facebook and am delighted to see my bandmates posting photos of the trip, of the gig, tagging each other in performance shots, writing comments on each other’s walls and generally enjoying the connection of having made new and special friends. It was an amazing weekend and an amazing group of people; just being in Sedona is magical in itself. Life has a different quality out there in the red rocks; experiences are heightened, issues and feelings tend to come to the surface, and the connections (especially between ourselves and whatever we believe in) are felt more deeply.
People have asked me, “Why Sedona?”
I am not sure which question they are asking.
Why do a show in Sedona? Why have I been going out there, making pilgrimages for the past twenty years? Why do I bring people to Sedona; family, friends, my bandleaders, my collaborators and colleagues?
Sedona has been a magical place of inspiration for me, a place where I feel a strong connection to whatever I search for, a place to “charge” and strengthen my intentions and desires. In the past, I would go to Sedona to do my “inner work” and then come back to New York to implement and manifest the new ideas.
Over the years, and throughout my trips to Sedona, I co-founded Starlight Orchestras and Productions (1991), I created my own band (The Valerie Romanoff Starlight Orchestra- 1993), I found and trained new bandleaders in the Starlight brand, and I developed and co-produced a line of successful spin-off bands. In 2000 I completed a three-year training program in mind-body-spirit psychotherapy. In 2001 I took over sole ownership of Starlight, and re-branded as a “women owned and operated” business. I created “The Starlight Experience” in 2003 as an alternative to headline entertainment, and have enjoyed performing with this 17-piece ensemble all over the country at some of the nation’s most prestigious events.
In between the busy gigging seasons, I would visit Sedona to “recharge and rejuve” and call forth new energies to infuse in my work.
Somewhere during the past few years, I began getting ideas for my own original music, and what an eclectic mix it turned out to be! I started a music publishing company called Valrock Music Group, and at the end of 2009, I released my first CD called “Healing Music for Massage, Meditation and Transformation.” This was a bridge for the different interests and aspects of my life to come together; for in the past, my pursuits of self- transformation and the inner journey seemed quite separate from my music career. Now, in 2010, it seemed that the time had come for me to finally integrate the many different parts of myself into one! To bring the music and healing work together, to bring my music and performance to Sedona, to bring new York musicians to Sedona, to do a concert wiht intention geared toeward the upliftment of all present; perform my transformational music with a live band, to come out as the featured artist and play my original music: funky, rockin and always uplifting, all speak to a new beginning and an exciting journey ahead.
To do a concert of this kind feels like a culmination of my life’s work, and the beginning of a new and exciting chapter of my life!
I have begun a series of articles here on my blog about the planning process of the CD Release Show which was in Sedona, Arizona on March 6, 2010, the evolution of Valrock Music and all the projects therein. For now, you can visit www.valrockmusic.com to listen to the music, and visit www.facebook.com/valrockmusic (please join) to read the latest posts and to write your own comments. As always, I invite you to enter remarks here as well.
I am having the best time with these new projects, I am so grateful for the involvement of such wonderful people (I will name them in the next post), and I can’t wait to perform more of this new music.
