Black
Sheep
Revival
Productions
Gregory Allison
About
Gregory Allison creates with a single violin a sound that travels across great landscapes. He brings the sensibility of a film composer into a live and intimate setting. His training in South Indian Classical music brings a melodic fluency and emotional fire to his compositions while his Western Classical training is apparent in the wide sonic palette that he creates. He is a sound shaper. His violin goes from intimate weeping to orchestral soundscapes, carrying the listener on a journey all the way.
A composer, multi-instrumentalist, and actor who performs in a wide variety of styles and genres, Greg is originally from Madison, WI where he began studying piano at age 5 and violin at 9. In high school he used his classical violin training as a springboard for learning about improvising, jazz, world music traditions. He started playing the mandolin and his studies on the instrument landed him a four-year scholarship at the Berklee College of Music in Boston where he completed a degree in Composition. After college he moved to Vermont and was a founding member of the ME/2 Orchestra, a nationally-recognized full orchestra based in Burlington, VT created for people with mental disabilities and those who support them. He also performed in the traditional middle eastern music ensemble Grup Anwar, and traveled to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with the Vermont theater troupe Spielpalast Cabaret. In Portland, OR he opened a private studio teaching violin, viola, mandolin, and piano while performing over 200 shows a year with Three for Silver, Eliza Rickman, as a sideman for various local bands, and as a studio musician. He has received two U.S. State Department grants to tour and teach in Russia.
In 2018 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a solo performing, recording, and film scoring career. He formed the acoustic trio RAQIA who will be releasing their second studio album next year. His first solo album is due out in early 2021.
PORTAL
Portal is an exploration of the seven centers of awakening. With violin- and viola-based compositions that move from intimate melodies to wide orchestral soundscapes, each track on the album represents an energy center in the body, a Chakra in Yogic philosophy, in which is held certain energies that we're either aware of or are in the dark about. The music represents the transmutation of those energies from darkness to light beginning in lower realm of the material plane, through the portal of the heart, and into the astral realm.
The first three pieces represent the Root, Sacral, and Solar Plexus Chakras and address some of the energies held in those areas. They are in the material plane. The fourth piece, Portal, is the Heart chakra and is the portal between the material and astral realm. Everything must pass through the heart in order to transcend to a higher plane. The fifth piece, Veritas, is the Throat chakra and addresses the Truth held in our voice. This is also the first Chakra in the astral plane. The sixth piece, Conical Visions, goes through the sixth and seventh Chakras, which are the Third Eye Chakra (knowledge, visions, Gnosis) and the Crown Chakra (The All, Anima Mundi, final transcendence into vibration and light). The journey closes with the melody that was heard on the first piece (Arise) and therefore brings us full circle back to the beginning. Having gone through all the seasons, we arise and begin again with the wisdom that no energy is created or destroyed, but rather it evolves in ever moving circles.
In addition to a physical album release, I worked with Vermont-based artist Kylie Dally of Potions Press to create limited edition art to accompany the album. Kylie created a set of six illustrations, one for each track on the album. Each illustration was hand carved on a woodblock and printed with oil-based black ink on wildcrafted, handmade lokta paper. The beautiful prints are 5” squares and look great framed individually or as a set. We present to you a limited edition run of 25, available on my bandcamp page. A digital copy of the album accompanies your purchase.