NEW AGE MUSIC

I have just finished reading Zan Stewart’s “New Age Music Money Machine” (Jan. 31) on Windham Hills records. The whole tone of the article led the reader to see Anne Robinson and William Ackerman as entrepreneurs who have somehow duped yuppies blessed with too much money into parting with some of it. How very sad to approach anything with the idea that money is the bottom line.

Nowhere in the article was the music itself ever more than superficially covered. When a description of the music was required, it was more often than not juxtaposed with remarks such as “mindlessly soothing” and “ ‘yuppie Muzak.’ ”

The reason for the commercial success of anything is that people like it enough to be willing to pay for it. It says a lot that this company was able to get off the ground at all without any radio air play in the first years. Those of us who were lucky enough to have heard artists such as George Winston before KTWV-FM existed generally heard him on a turntable in someone else’s home.

THERESA RASMUSSEN

Orange