OTTMAR LIEBERT INTERPRETS HOLIDAY CLASSICS IN LATEST CD

Renowned nouveau flamenco guitarist, Ottmar Liebert has put a fresh bloom on an inspiring collection of traditional, classical, and new songs in his latest CD, the appropriately titled Winter Rose. Liebert breathes new life into holiday favorites with sensitive, even haunting, arrangements of O Little Town of Bethlehem and O Holy Night. The CD also includes fresh interpretations of classical music, including Fauré's Pavane and Les Roses D'Isphahan and Tchaikovsky's Le Café from The Nutcracker. But perhaps the greatest delight are the six new songs written by Liebert especially for Winter Rose, including Westcoast, The Longest Night, Kora/River of Stars, and A Sweet Persimmon. Each captures the essence of the season. The result is an album that is both familiar and inventive, heartwarming and evocative. For Winter Rose Liebert teams up with an unusually talented and diverse team of musicians, including the versatile Jon Gagan on fretless and fretted electric bass guitars, saz (Turkish stringed instrument) and keyboards, and Robby Rothschild on cajon (drum box) and kora (African harp). Winter Rose is also a pioneering album for the music industry, issued under a Creative Commons license rather than a typical copyright. Instead of threatening to punish fans who file-share music, this license actually encourages fans to share the music, or even sample songs to create create original "mash-ups" of their own.The new album is available on CD as well as via instant download from Ottmar Liebert's ListeningLounge (http://www.ottmarliebert.com). Songs from Ottmar Liebert as well as other artists sell for $1 each. All music sold on the ListeningLounge is digitally encoded at a much higher quality than is available on any other music download service, and employs no restrictive copy controls (digital rights management) making it easy to transfer the music to MP3 players or burn CDs.The ListeningLounge also proudly presents Ottmar Liebert's Tears in the Rain, an album of solo guitar improvisations available exclusively via download. These songs were recorded as naturally as possible, with all the warmth and character of a live performance and none of the electronic sound processing usually applied to studio recordings. As with most albums on the Listening Lounge, customers who want to burn their own CDs can also download a printable booklet for Tears in the Rain.