Album Notes

Inspired by a Jean Ritchie poem of the same title, I Celebrate Life! is the title track of a collection of original songs and tunes written for Mountain and Hammered Dulcimer by award-winning singer-songwriter and musician, Steve Eulberg.

In his hands, the dulcimers reveal their many different characters: from old-time hoe-down, to sweet lyrical poetry, to bent-note blues and mystical eastern drones. Landscapes and portraits are painted with colorful hues as the listener is transported from the shores of Lake Michigan to the snowy springtime Rocky Mountains, from the gently falling first flakes of winter to the Ozarks of Missouri, from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to the brewing summer storms of Colorado.

But more than a travelogue, these tunes are also sonic journal of the artist's interior and exterior journeys.

Eulberg, a 4-time winner and 3-time finalist in the National Mountain and Hammered Dulcimer Championships, has gathered into one collection the tunes he's been composing for these instruments since he began playing them 25 and 21 years ago. This collection is his book is also entitled, I Celebrate Life!

This recording is a sampling of 22 previously unrecorded tunes. As one reviewer has commented, "This is a Double Album of Original Dulcimer tunes...the best yet!"

I Celebrate Life! follows Eulberg's 2003 release, 'Twas in the Moon of Wintertime which was featured on United Airlines Inflight Audio during the holiday season of that year, and his 2001 release, Soaring, whose title track is featured in the soundtrack of the PBS television show Roadtrip Nation (episode 10) which is airing this summer.