ANN LICATER, Echoes from the Forest

Over the course of eight albums since the release of her auspiciously titled debut Following the Call (2007), the grand swirl of joy and inspiration we feel when we listen to world flutist Ann Licater comes from an intuitive knowing that she’s always connected to the divine – and composes and plays as if she’s in a constant state/flow of prayer and meditation while leaving herself open to channel an infinite supply of creativity. 

As her accolade-filled career in the realms of new age, world and ambient music has developed, Ann has expressed, quite directly in her soul-provoking album titles, a unique dual affinity for contemplating our place in and emergence from the heavens and celebrating the great gift of nature as we explore and navigate our way through our time on planet earth. Her impactful intertwining of themes in essence began with a fascinating dream she had that inspired the title of her second album Doorway to a Dream (2010).

The flutist saw a redwood forest literally floating in the stars and realized that her role as a creator is to bring the cosmos here via her array of flutes, and her music serves as a unique portal. The titles of her most recent three albums beautifully express this phenomenon – Whispers from Earth (2022), Between the Stars (2023) and now, Echoes from the Forest (2025), which over the course of 14 breathtaking (and breath-filled!) tracks and 45 minutes, richly embodies its cover promise to provide a safe space for meditation, serve as inspiration and help our weary souls achieve peace.

Although these alternating heaven/earth titles seem like a conscious effort to convey aspects of nature’s divine duality, in truth, Ann is simply open to wherever the divine muse leads her. Her pieces, like the Flute for the Soul workshops she has led over the course of her career, are tools for self-discovery and listeners are free to find their own interpretations via the life experiences they bring to their listening. Echoes From the Forest is a perfect example of her free-flowing process.

Having spent time by the ocean in Santa Barbara in recent times, she originally envisioned a new collection focused on water imagery – but the divine had other things in mind. When she began praying, meditating and channeling, every note that emerged felt connected to forest imagery – and more specifically, as the album began coalescing, she began thinking of many of her wonder-filled walks in the forest. The giant redwoods in the Henry Cowell Forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains are a particularly magical place she would venture to in her mind.  

Echoes from the Forest finds Ann artfully fusing those life-changing memories with the natural expressions that emerge from the impressive array of 11 flutes she uses – a palette that includes Ocarina, Native American, Native American-Style, Mayan-style Drone, silver C-flute and alto. While the focus is always on her compelling melodies, fascinating moods and immersive  emotions, she enhances several pieces with unique textures such as synth and vocal layers on the opening track (and lead single) “Sky Dreaming” (an awe-filled literal deep breath looking up past the branches in the forest to the stars above) and an instrument called the Steel Tongue Drum, which, along with caressing synth, adds a percussive “traveling” feeling to the closing piece “Journey Beyond.”  

Along the way, Ann uses her flute intuition and years of flute training and exploration to open us up to feeling every nuance of gentle wind against our skin, see the intricate patterns of dappling sunlight through the trees, look up in awe at the towering branches, touch the aged bark and feel an overall sense of our own small but still significant place in the vast universe. She takes us to places in the forest where we discover, for instance, the welcoming splendor of a “Cedar Sanctuary” (which, quite fascinatingly, finds her fashioning hypnotic harmonies via the intertwining tones of a Mayan-style drone flute) and revel in breathy wonder as we receive the “Wisdom of the Pines” and rest comfortably while contemplating our lives in the shade of a “Peaceful Willow.”

While as always with Ann’s recordings, Echoes from the Forest is perhaps best appreciated as an eyes-closed, relax and meditate start to finish experience, the titles of her compositions serve as great signposts along the literal and metaphorical trail through the trees. We revel and rest in her travels to “Ancient Vistas” (another gem enhanced by dreamy synth), a brief, slightly cautious excursion to “Redwood Canyon” (where the texturing of her flutes truly form an echoing effect) and find solace at the center of a “Circle of Trees.” Those not listening to the tunes sequentially and looking for splendid entry points to the album might enjoy the unique sensation of Ann’s breathy pauses between the melodic passages of “Earth Calling” and the intoxicating blend of the high-toned bird calls of her ocarina, Troy Arnett’s graceful Moog synth and Peter Phippen’s seductive bass lines on “Bird and Breeze.”

Perhaps it goes without saying, but truly, the echoes from Ann Licater’s latest encouraging open door to promoting self-discovery will reverberate in your heart, mind and soul long after even those first hundred or so listens.

Listen to the full album here: Ann Licater - Echoes from the Forest