By JOAN SOLTYS

Island Living editor

For a small burb, Whidbey Island garners perhaps more than its fair share of national honors, particularly in the rarefied sphere of music, film and art.

Just last February, David Ossman of Freeland, one of the founding members of the Firesign Theater, earned a Grammy nomination with his three collaborators in the category of Best Spoken Word Comedy Album.

This February, another islander will be traveling to the Grammy Award ceremonies. Eric Tingstad, who graduated from Coupeville High School and still returns to Whidbey at least annually with Nancy Rumbel to perform here, was notified Tuesday of a Grammy nomination for Best New Age Album for the Tingstad-Rumbel recording, Acoustic Garden. Recorded on Narada Records, the album is the 13th for the pair.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” said a very exhilarated Eric Tingstad. “The first thing is you sort of get an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Like the winners who go up on stage and thank everyone everywhere. You want to do that. Just the nomination is such an incredible honor.”

Tingstad received the first phone call about the nomination at 6 a.m., from a friend in New York City, Robin Spielberg, who was “very bubbly,” he said. “You could almost see her jumping around.”

Spielberg called Rumbel at just about the same time, and she in turn called Tingstad at about 6:30 a.m.

“Narada called at 7:30 a.m., and our publicist at 8,” Tingstad said. “The Recording Academy (which awards the Grammys) called at 9:30 a.m.”

That call was made by Deborah Semer, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Branch of the academy.

“We’re very proud of Nancy and Eric,” Semer said in a statement. “I think this is a great album.”

Bill Humphreys, director of music programs at Langley United Methodist Church, said he’s always known Tingstad and Rumbel would be recognized and honored, ever since their first concert in his choir room at the high school 20 years ago, which preceded the release of their first album.

“They are incredible musicians with a vision for their art and an amazing ability to stay focused, live with success, and yet remain ‘real people’ with wonderful families,” Humphreys said.

Tingstad and Rumbel and their families will be in the audience at the Grammy Awards.

“The tickets are already booked,” Tingstad said.

There are 104 categories for Grammy Awards this year. Acoustic Garden was one of five albums selected from 83 titles in the New Age category. Other nominees were Kitaro, Will Ackerman, R. Carlos Nakai and Jai Uttal & the Pagan Love Orchestra.

Tingstad said Ackerman, who founded Windham Hill Records, is an old friend.

“In fact, he was an early influence on me. He’s a great musician,” Tingstad said. “And I’m a big fan of Jai Uttal. He plays cool music.”

Since its release in August 2002, Acoustic Garden has remained on the Billboard charts as well as the New Age radio charts for 16 weeks. It has been reviewed by media as diverse as The Chicago Tribune, which termed the album “a new kind of roots music”; Victory Music, which called it “peaceful, thought provoking, gentle, warm and intimate, with an excellent variety of styles”; and Salt Lake City’s Deseret News, which said, “Acoustic Garden is joyfully abloom.”

The album can indeed literally blossom. The CD cover contains the first-ever plantable CD cover embedded with wildflower seeds for an instant garden.

“We haven’t planted one yet,” Tinstad said. “The album came out in August, which was the wrong time to plant, and now there’s the Grammy, just before spring, so after that we’ll see how the flowers come up.”

Tingstad’s mother Sue Tingstad, who still lives in Coupeville, said Eric is “passionate and diligent.”

“When he was 8 he told me he wanted to be a Beatle,” Sue Tingstad said. “He’s already played Carnegie Hall, and now he’s going to the Grammys.”

She and Jack Tingstad are also the parents of Evan Tingstad, an Island County sheriff’s deputy, and Ellis Tingstad.

“Ellis is a plastics producer, but also a Buddhist author,” Sue Tingstad said. “Jack and I feel extremely blessed. We have a musician, an author and a cop. It’s just exciting and wonderful to watch them mature and grow and then do the things they’ve wanted to do.”

The Grammy selection is made by music peers, not based on sales or chart positions.

“Since it has nothing to do with purchases, we don’t all have to go out and buy albums,” Sue Tingstad said. “But we should all do it anyway.”