New Age
New age is a genre of music that tends to focus on peaceful, meditative, and relaxing melodies. New age can take many forms: electronic new age uses soft synths, long, sustained notes, and simple drum beats, while acoustic new age uses instruments such as flutes, piano, and guitar to create a calm atmosphere (though sometimes even these acoustic instruments are digital samples). Mike Oldfield, Enigma, Popol Vuh, and Vangelis are some of the most prominent artists in the genre.
Some artists have even blended specific types of folk music into their own to create very distinct sounds. Examples of this include Enya and Clannad, who mixed together new age and Celtic Folk Music to make Celtic New Age, and Cusco and Medwyn Goodall, whose South American influences stylized Andean New Age.
Andean New Age
A genre of new age music taking heavy influence from Andean Folk Music emphasizing a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere, often utilizing a strong use of flute. The most well known Andean New Age group is Cusco, with their album Apurimac gaining them international success.
Celtic New Age
Celtic New Age music is represented in its most known style by haunting songs, which are interpreted by renowned female vocalists like Enya and Loreena McKennitt. With the support of their voices these songs become a mysterious blend of subliminal sounds, ambient beats, angelic and ethereal vocals, resulting in a captivating sound that mixes elements of Celtic Folk Music and contemporary music. These New Age compositions evoke pastoral imagery and abstract romantic sentiments, talking in some cases about scenes from the fairies Celtic lore. There are also instrumental compositions which rely on stripped-down arrangements of harps, whistles, fiddles, violins and keyboards in a variety of combination. Other major acts are Clannad, Llewellyn, Gary Stadler, Secret Garden and Dagda.
Neoclassical New Age
A subgenre of New Age music strongly influenced by and sometimes also based upon early music and the Baroque Music or Classical Period.
Genres courtesy of rateyourmusic.com