Raphael

Raphael (born 1948) is an American musician and composer of ambient music. Biography Raphael F. Sharpe was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1948. Raised by Benedictine nuns, when his family got ill, he learned classical music and Gregorian chant. In 1967, he participated at the San Francisco Summer of Love, masquerading as a velvet-caped European count playing gypsy style violin. He studied piano at the San Francisco Conservatory. From there he moved to the Esalen Institute at Big Sur where he worked for ten years as a teacher and musician. There he started pursuing music as a therapy, mixing world rhythms and western music. In 1988 he released 'Music To Disappear In' which sold over 500,000 copies.