Dear Reader,
I
am a creative artist and a storyteller. I create books with vivid audio
albums filled with cinematic/symphonic music, narration and sound
design and which are also live theatrical shows. I compose music for the
classical concert stage and film. I present multiple concert series’
and perform as reader, conductor and player.
Looking
back…I started writing fantasy books with illustrations when I was nine
years old. Later, I discovered music and lived the life of a composer
for many years. My stories never left me. In fact, I am the type of
person who needs some kind of active imaginative world to get myself to
sleep. I emerged from my schooling phase with a Doctorate in music
composition (Cornell) and the complete event structure for Tales Of The
Ocean City through book eight, which I am completing now. Of course,
when I get to each new area of the story it burgeons out, grows new
branches and new things happen from the early conceptions.
There is much autobiography in my stories.
In
Tales Of The Ocean City is chronicled a young civilization turning the
corner into the future. The main characters are young Harl’ut and his
lifelong companion, Vispushin - she is a perianth (a kind of telepathic
pegasus). They are close, like family, and speak to each other
mind-to-mind.
Before
moving into the future, the citizens of The Ocean City must face their
brutal and primitive past. This happens in multiple ways. For Harl’ut,
he undergoes an initiation ritual adventure at the end of Book Two where
he faces images and personifications from the past, resolves them and
battles a terrible monster. The Ocean City itself, in the over-all five
book opening series, must face an enemy from ancient times, The Vorm,
with whom they co-evolved on the ancestral isle and who are now
threatening their very existence. In books four and five, the heroes of
The Ocean City engage in epic war with the Vorm and Harl’ut and
Vispushin lead a cadre of young warriors into the Vorm Hive on a vital
mission.
Much
of this can be interpreted as a metaphor for our personal journeys. I
emerged from much conflict in my youth to a very positive place filled
with career and personal success and am moving forward as a storyteller.
When writing TOC, I realized that there were specific things that
relate to my childhood experiences and that certain characters relate to
people of my past and present. I will save going into those specifics
for another time - but am happy to report that the perianth race is
based on my animal family - we call them pets…but they are so much more.
I
believe in the transformative power of imagination, especially as
demonstrated in the fine arts. That’s why I like to use the word
classical in defining TOC, i.e. Classical Epic Fantasy. Much of my work
is about feeding and growing imagination in one way or another. I hope
people experience my work and then feel differently about how they
experience the world around them. Imagination is the highest function
of the human mind - it gives us art, music and scientific theories…and
helps us envision a better future for ourselves and our civilization. It
has been damaged in many ways in our modern lives. Fantasy can help
cure this.
I
hope experiencing my work help you to see and experience life with
imagination. Everything around you is alive, everything is a story
waiting to be told. Tell yourself these stories as you walk through
life.
Keep reading fantasy! Live with imagination!
With love for my readers and fantasy,
Christopher Kaufman
Christopher Kaufman is an author,
composer, presenter, illustrative artist and performer. He started
imaginative fantasy books with illustrative art at the age of nine.
During high school years he found music and attended The New Orleans
Center for The Creative Arts and went on to major in music composition
in college. He finished his schooling – earning his DMA in music
composition at Cornell University where he studied with Pulitzer Prize
Winning composers who prize his abilities as a composer.
Christopher is the type of person who
needs imaginative fantasy scenarios to get to sleep. Therefore, he
emerged from Cornell, not only with his degrees in music, but with the
full event structure for his classic epic fantasy series Tales Of The
Ocean City in his mind.
He began writing the story down in the
early 2000’s, but it did not really come to life until he developed his
home music ‘laboratory’ and started creating the music and text at the
same time. Thus books one and two of TOC came about simultaneously as
both graphically illustrated pages and effulgent audio albums filled
with cinematic epic symphonic music.
They exist now as physical books and
audio albums (that go together) and the new Video Book version. He
performs live tours with the music pouring through speakers, live
narration and the colorful pages streaming on screen – a true immersive
multi-media experience.
He also maintains his career as a
composer for the concert stage with a full body of work, from solo works
thru orchestral. He specializes as well in ‘environmental works’ which
feature soundscapes crafted from hundreds of natural sounds, live
musicians (from soloists, chamber groups and to full orchestra), videos
filled with both natural and artistic images and readings from the works
of John Muir and others.
Kaufman’s books feature
full-page graphic illustration and go-with audio albums filled with epic
cinematic music, narration and sound design. All available, with
generous discount packages, at kaufmantales.com (epubs and the new Video Book version available there!).
His author page is talesoftheoceancity.com.
His you-tube channel is SOUNDARTUS.
Visit him at Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/talesoftheoceancity.
Christopher believes in the transformative power of imagination.
“Live with imagination!”
A young civilization is turning the
corner into the future, but first they must face a terrible enemy from
their deepest past – THE VORM.
The main characters are a young man
named Harl’ut and his lifelong companion Vispushin – who is a perIanth, a
kind of telepathic pegasus. Join them on this epic adventure as they
lead a group of young warriors into the heart of the Vorm Hive.
Book One: Battle In The Sky is the
first of five books which comprise the opening series of this epic tale.
Here, Harl’ut and Vispushin and The Princess Bryn’lynn, engage in
desperate battle over the southern plain with savage Vorm warriors. You
will be uplifted by the passionate and thrilling conclusion of the first
installment of this fantasy adventure.
In Book Two: Descent Into The Abyss,
Harl’ut recovers from his harrowing adventure from Book One: Battle In
The Sky. He walks through the streets of The Ocean City, visits the
Sculpture Garden and his friend, Elá, the bard, and engages in exciting
training games with warrior/mentor, Calanctus. Then the story takes you
down the throat of the vast volcano, Pla’than’taa, once worshipped as a
god, where Harl’ut enacts a deadly initiation ritual, confronts the
barbaric past of his people and battles a terrifying monster.
Pick up your copies at https://kaufmantales.com/.
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