Today, award-winning pop-violinist,Lindsey Stirling, announces her new Christmas album Snow Waltz (out digitally October 7 and on vinyl November 18 via Concord Records). Featuring eight classic covers and five original tracks, Snow Waltz delivers Stirling’s immersive arrangements and mesmerizing melodies but with a seasonal twist, featuring songs that promise to be the perfect soundtrack for the holiday season.
“I wanted to give the songs a whimsical, pixie-like feeling that’s quintessentially me,”says Stirling about the new record. “It’s always a challenge to put your own stamp on a classic song that’s been recorded hundreds of times, and I really loved experimenting with different approaches and making sure that every song felt completely unique to who I am as an artist.”
To accompany the announcement, Stirling shares the project’s first single, Ice Storm. An original guitar-fuelled and wildly rousing instrumental, the song shines a new light on the multi-faceted musician’s rock-leaning sensibilities. The Ice Storm video features a paper-cut-like collage of a pack of wolves chasing a young deer, running for its life to escape danger.
Recorded in Los Angeles with Gladius (longtime GRAMMY nominated producer with credits including Demi Lovato & Justin Bieber) executive producing, Snow Waltz conjures a delightfully eerie mood, wholly embodying the limitless imagination at the heart of Stirling’s artistry. The album’s title came from thinking about the period of time between Halloween and Christmas where the two seasons overlap. “I wanted to create something in the same world as The Nightmare Before Christmas or the Harry Potter movies, where there’s sort of a Christmas-y feeling alongside all the spookiness,” Lindsey explains. And the song Snow Waltz is just that, rooted in her ineffably expressive violin work and graced with many cinematic details including darkly sweeping percussion, lilting flute melodies, and bright and sprightly glockenspiel tones.
When it came to reinterpreting timeless holiday songs, Stirling tapped into her own boundless and unfettered ingenuity. On Joy to the World, she joined forces with Gladius and orchestrator Stephen Anderson to create a gloriously stomping, Celtic-inspired take on the 18th century Christmas carol. One of the album’s most left-of-centre moments, the beat-heavy God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen showcases Stirling’s frenetic violin alongside her hypnotic, heavenly vocals and was produced with Mark Maxwell. For her flamenco-infused rendition of José Feliciano’s Feliz Navidad, she enlisted the guitar-playing talents of fellow multi-hyphenate Mark Ballas (a dancer/ choreographer/ musician/actor who served as her partner on the 25th season of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars).
Although all of Snow Waltz bears a potent emotionality, songs like Magic ft. David Archuleta, holds a particularly powerful significance for Stirling. One of several vocally driven original numbers on the album (along with Crazy For Christmas ft. Bonnie McKee and Christmas Time With You ft. Frawley), the bittersweet but uplifting ballad was sparked from a profound moment of Stirling’s life, when her sisters and mom shared loving and fun memories around her father’s passing.
The follow-up to her debut holiday album Warmer in the Winter — which earned a #1 spot on Billboard’s Holiday Albums Chart, and #1 on Amazon and iTunes Holiday Album Charts — Snow Waltz emerges as a singular new entry in the holiday-music canon, once again proving Stirling’s extraordinary gift as an instrumental storyteller.
Lindsey started an annual drive, The Upside Fund, around each holiday season to help families in dire need of support during a medical crisis and has partnered with medical companies including, RIP Medical Debt, Resolve Medical Bills, and Dollar For to pay off over $4.5 million in medical debt and bills nationally. Stay tuned for more information about this year’s drive and find more info here.
Since the release of her debut album in 2012, Lindsey Stirling has established a successful career as an electronic music impresario, violinist, dancer, and artist. Stay tuned for additional information on Snow Waltz.
SNOW WALTZ TRACKLIST
1. Sleigh Ride
2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
3. Crazy for Christmas ft. Bonnie McKee
4. Feliz Navidad
5. Joy to the World Intro
6. Joy to the World
7. Snow Waltz
8. Christmas Time With You ft. Frawley
9. Little Drummer Boy
10. Oh Come Emmanuel
11. Oh Holy Night
12. Magic ft. David Archuleta
13. Deck the Halls
14. Ice Storm
