Richard Hugh Blackmore is an English guitarist and songwriter. He was one of the founding members of Deep Purple in 1968, playing jam-style hard rock music that mixed guitar riffs and organ sounds. Blackmore is prolific in creating guitar riffs and is often noted for his classically influenced solos.
Stephan Micus is a German musician and composer whose musical style is heavily influenced by his study of traditional instruments and musical techniques from Japan, India, South America, and other countries around the world. With the exception of his album The Music of Stones (1989), he plays all of the instruments on his recordings, combining styles from different countries and using the instruments in unprecedented ways in each of his pieces. He often uses layers of a single instrument to create unusual combinations of sounds. He is one of the only ECM Records artists whose records are not produced by Manfred Eicher. He has mixed instruments from around the world, or used whatever was at hand: stones, ordinary flowerpots tuned with water, and his voice—singing improvised syllables over ten years before others made this approach fashionable.
David Arkenstone is an American composer and performer. His music is primarily instrumental, with occasional vocalizations. Most of Arkenstone's music falls into new age category; however, he also worked in other genres, including even a heavy metal soundtrack for Emperor: Battle for Dune video game. His music has been described as 'soundtracks for the imagination'. Throughout his career, Arkenstone released over 50 albums and composed music for video games, including World of Warcraft, and for television, including NBC's Kentucky Derby. David has been nominated for Grammy Awards four times.
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, known as Sting, is an English musician and actor. He was the principal songwriter, lead singer, and bassist for new wave rock band the Police from 1977 to 1984. He launched a solo career in 1985, and has included elements of rock, jazz, reggae, classical, new-age, and worldbeat in his music.