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When the Beatles' catalog was released on iTunes last month, the only trouble was that many music fans — me included — already own every song the Fab Four recorded.

This weekend, though, we can hear many of the Beatles' songs for the first time again. Pioneering New Age musician David Lanz will present his unique interpretations of the music John, Paul, George and Ringo popularized nearly a half-century ago.

"When you use Lennon and McCartney as your mentors, you can't go wrong," said Lanz in an interview.

The Grammy-winning Lanz, accompanied by cellist Walter Gray and xiao flutist Gary Stroutsos, will perform selections from his most recent album, "Liverpool: Re-Imagining the Beatles."

The 60-year-old pianist and composer is fulfilling a lifelong dream to perform his distinctive take on the Beatles, the band he remembers seeing on "The Ed Sullivan Show" with the rest of the world.

"When the Beatles came, they electrified everything around them," he said. It was one of the formative moments of his life, a moment that, in part, inspired him to become a musician himself.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Lanz was a sideman in bands that modeled themselves after musicians who became popular during the British Invasion. But a new style of music being developed by artists such as Steven Halpern drew him in.

Lanz was playing blues and jazz in a piano bar in the 1980s when a friend asked him to compose some music that would "illustrate the flow of energy through the centers of the body," to play as he taught a seminar. Lanz was interested in the healing qualities of music, so he made a tape of solo piano for the seminar. After everyone who heard the tape requested a copy, Lanz knew he was onto something.

The music he composed for the seminar was the basis for his first solo piano album, the ground-breaking "Heartsounds." Despite being a kind of music that listeners weren't able to categorize, the album became a best-seller and launched Lanz's career.

As he began experimenting with more instruments and synthesizers, record companies tried to get him to come up with a term to describe the music. "The term 'New Age' was not associated with music, but with a type of thought, a blend of Western and Eastern principles," Lanz said. "We had already run the course with 'New Wave,' and record companies liked the word 'new.' " That's how the label of New Age music was born.

Lanz's most popular album, "Cristofori's Dream," was No. 1 on Billboard's first adult alternative/New Age chart for 27 weeks in 1988, eventually hitting platinum-selling status. Twenty years later, he tackled the Beatles' music, crediting his bandmates for letting him know they were ready, too. (Lanz calls his band The Liverpool Trio.)

Lanz avoided the Beatles' most well-known songs, instead drawing upon his preference for more meditative tunes. "John was a little more introspective, so most [of the songs I chose] were written by Lennon," Lanz said.

The resulting 2010 album is a moody, atmospheric piece, with beguiling interpretations of "Yes It Is," "Lovely Rita," "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," as well as two mash-ups: "Because" melded with "I'm Only Sleeping," and "Rain" blended with "Eight Days a Week."

"People have said my music is sad," Lanz said. "I hope it's not depressing. It's emotional, a sweet melancholy."

Lanz said his friend Kurt Bestor was one of the first people to hear the album. "He is very intelligent," Utah composer Bestor said of Lanz. "We're members of a mutual admiration society."

While the show will revolve around the Beatles, Lanz knows he's touring during December. "I wouldn't be that stupid to not do Christmas songs," Lanz said. "We'll be having Christmas with the Beatles."

Turn off your mind, relax and float downstreamNew Age music pioneer David Lanz will perform music of the Beatles.When • Saturday, Dec. 4, at 2 and 7:30 p.m.Where • Covey Center for the Arts, 425 W. Center St., ProvoTickets • $20 to $25 at http://www.coveycenter.org