"The Masterharper of Pern" project was begun when Anne McCaffrey asked us (Tania Opland and Mike Freeman) if we could write some music to go with the release of the novel of the same name. There were various thoughts about how the music would be used. Anne's first suggestion was that the notation might be printed somewhere in the book. But once we'd sent her a tape of our initial drafts of some of the music, she wanted to get it properly recorded, with the idea of including it with the book. When the publisher didn't go for that, for various reasons, the three of us decided to go ahead and release the CD ourselves.
The CD was an instant hit with McCaffrey readers, who had been reading descriptions of this music for many years. Recently, the first recording has been followed up with a new CD called SUNSET'S GOLD, based on another of McCaffrey's musical characters - young harper Menolly.