Larry Tuttle is the Chapman Stick player for STRING PLANET. He also was a founding member and played in the eclectic instrumental group FREEWAY PHILHARMONIC for fifteen years. His composing and playing style is seriously wide-ranging and eclectic, drawing heavily from classical music (he grew up playing string bass in just about every orchestra imaginable), jazz (he studied ear training and improv with jazz great Gary Peacock) and pop music (two albums with the rock group "Russia" on Warner Brothers Records in theearly 80's). The Stick is an amazing cross between guitar and piano - it has twelve strings (six bas strings and six guitar strings). Each set of strings is played with one hand, by tapping the strings against the frets, giving the impression of two instruments being played at once. Emmett Chapman, the inventor of the Stick, has this to say about "Through The Gates": "Larry is first and foremost a composer who has carefully crafted a lasting monument of his musical work. Fortunately for us, it is meticulously rendered on the instrument we play, in solo and wonderfully recorded on CD. By now you might have gathered that I'm an admirer of Larry's whole approach to the instrument I build.”