Exploring Other Traditions
Following his Shaker trilogy, Coulter continued his exploration of traditional music, teaming up again with Benjamin Verdery to produce the album Song for Our Ancestors, which contained songs from several traditions. According to Coulter, their friendship had become "a musical agreement on how arrangements should go and how best to manage such matters as intonation and improvisation, to release the instrument's full range of feeling." The album included guitar duets from various musical traditions, including those of Ireland, Germany, Spain, Africa, and Tibet. One of the songs, "An Daingean," was composed by Coulter, who wrote it in honor of a coastal Irish town where his brother was married. Coulter and Verdery produced a unique sound, combining both steel and nylon strings in the arrangements.
Over the years, Coulter has produced an impressive body of work of the highest quality and consistency.
William Coulter's love of traditional melody is framed by a classical sense of composition and realized with an impeccable and sensitive guitar technique. William's well exercised craftsmanship and his unusual ability to direct the voices of the guitar as if they were a steel-string choir make the music come to life in his hands.
In 2004, Coulter released the album The Road Home, his first truly solo recording since he began exploring Celtic music over twenty years ago. The album contains tunes from Ireland, Brittany, Norway, Portugal and America, as well as several original compositions. Coulter also included a tribute to one of his teenage musical idols with his beautiful solo guitar arrangement of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush." The album also features the exquisite guitar composition "Pastorale" and the lullaby waltz "The Road Home."
In addition to his own recordings, most of which were released on the Gourd Music label, Coulter has also performed on various compilations produced by the Narada, Windham Hill, and Hearts of Space labels. When not performing, he works as a recording engineer and producer, and teaches guitar at the University of California-Santa Cruz. During summers, he teaches at music camps including the National Guitar Summer Workshop, Alasdair Fraser's Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School, and the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop.
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