New Release – Of Astronomy by Mark Grundhoefer ft. Eelco van Zanten
For over 25 years, guitarist Mark Grundhoefer has been a professional musician playing in numerous bands, devoting countless hours of session work, and developing a full-time teaching studio. He resides in Atlanta, Georgia (USA) where he continues to perform, record, and educate.
Mark’s solo sound is a reflection of his southern roots and his classical and jazz studies. He has been compared to many of his own inspirations, such as Pat Metheny, Jeff Beck, Eric Johnson and Steve Howe, among others.
“My music is instrumental. Someone once asked me if that makes me a songwriter or a composer? Either?…both! I still consider myself a songwriter because every one of my songs tells a story, but I don’t always get to decide what that is. The listener hears their own story. My music is just a tool for their imagination.”
“This might seem cliche, but I do believe the music exists all around us and it’s our job to grab it when it passes by. I was sitting in my studio playing an Andrew York piece when a new theme found it’s way under my fingers and I just went with it. Composed my part of this duet in one sitting and quickly recorded a scratch track.”
“Collaboration is one of the most exciting and sometimes scary ways to write music. I composed and recorded my part and sent it to Eelco with no direction or ideas for his part. He responded with a completely finished – and I might add amazing! – guitar part. A few tweaks here and there and the track was completed.”
The result of this collaboration is ‘Of Astronomy’ by Mark Grundhoefer and Eelco Van Zanten which releases 18th March.
“The instrumental guitar community is small. It’s easy to make friends from all over the world. Eelco and myself are well established and it was just a matter of time before we connected. After a year of online friendship we decided to have a few face to face conversations (from US to Europe) and put some ideas down of songs we could write and release. ‘Of Astronomy’ is the first release and definitely not the last.”
Rhythm Guitar – Mark Grundhoefer
Lead Guitar – Eelco Van Zanten
The song was mixed by Mark Grundhoefer and mastered by Eelco Van Zanten.
Bio Eelco van Zanten (1976, Amsterdam)
Eelco has been writing, producing, releasing and performing music since the 90s. He has worked with several household names in the Dutch music business.
Revisiting his instrumental guitar music passion, Van Zanten published a track a week on YouTube and Instagram from 2019 into 2020, resulting in an album that Guitarist Magazine (NL) called an “Excellent guitar fusion album filled with versatile and melodically interesting guitar work”.