Dean Evenson is one of the more prolific and longstanding figures of new age music, playing flute and composing dozens of albums of ambient and healing sounds starting in the late '70s and continuing for decades to come. Evenson's blend of nature sounds and soothing instrumentals all but defined new age music throughout the '80s, and along with wife Dudley Evenson, he formed the Soundings of the Planet label to release their collaborative and solo works, moving from classic releases like 1993's Forest Rain or 1999's Healing Waters right up to 2022's Earth Within.

After working in the '60s as a studio engineer for Regent Sound, Evenson and his wife Dudley became involved in videography. They traveled across the country with early portable video equipment to document "the awakening consciousness as it was manifesting in people's lives," collecting countless hours of footage of the natural world in motion. The couple eventually settled in Tucson, Arizona, and built a small empire with their Soundings of the Planet record company. Their stated purpose was to help people "experience the healing energies of music and natural sounds and get in touch with a more peaceful place inside themselves." Soundings of the Planet was remarkably successful in creating and distributing recordings that communicated this goal. Evenson produced many of the label's artists.

Beginning in 1979, Evenson recorded albums of his own that combine natural sounds with his softly flowing flute melodies and various other acoustic and electronic instruments. These efforts were released on Soundings of the Planet, and he'd sometimes record duet albums with his wife Dudley, Scott Huckabay, Walter Makichen, and other similarly minded artists. This sprawling and single-minded artistic pursuit yielded countless albums, arriving at a rate of around one a year, but sometimes more from 1986 onward. There were multiple highlights, such as 1989's Ocean Dreams, 1999's Healing Waters, 2005's Eagle River, 2013's Dream Space, and so on. Evenson continued his work into the 2020s, collaborating with Huckabay, Doug Tessler, and Phil Heaven on 2020's Healing Resonance, continuing his musical partnership with Dudley Evenson on 2021's Monet's Garden, and meditating on nature and time over the course of 2022's Earth Within. ~ Linda Kohanov