Cheryl B. Engelhardt's path to ambient music was a long one. She studied Biology and Music at Cornell University and orchestration at Juilliard, then began her working life in a New York hip-hop recording studio. From there she moved through film, commercial, choral and theater composition, and she made four pop records before arriving at New Age and classical crossover. The turn came with Luminary in 2020, a solo-piano and ambient album that reached #1 on the Amazon and iTunes New Age charts. The Passenger earned a GRAMMY nomination in 2022, and According to the Moon, a collaboration with the Australian artist Gem, brought a second nomination in the Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album category. Alongside these sit the orchestral Quantum Entanglement, recorded with the Budapest Scoring Orchestra, and The Listening, a choral piece inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King's 1967 speech "Beyond Vietnam." Her own phrase for the sound is the place where delicate meets epic.
A note on this guide: the formal discography listing for her catalog is empty. The three albums below are the ones named in her bio and verified biographical answers. No cover art or track titles are documented, so none are shown or invented.
Year: 2020
This is the doorway. Luminary is solo piano and ambient texture, composed during a residency in a mountain town in Greece and designed to ease anxiety and offer what she describes as energetic peace and focus. Expect space between the notes, slow pacing, and no climb toward drama. The record lets the listener have their own experience rather than steering them toward a story.
In her arc, it is the breakthrough, the moment the pop-and-scoring years resolved into a quiet, acoustic voice. Its #1 placement on both the Amazon and iTunes New Age charts showed it reached well beyond niche listeners.
Where to drop in: Track titles aren't documented here, so begin with the opening track and let the album unfold in order. It works best uninterrupted, at low volume, with nothing else asking for your attention.
Year: GRAMMY-nominated in 2022
If Luminary is stillness, The Passenger is stillness in motion. She composed it entirely aboard a nine-day cross-country train journey, after the loss of her friend and collaborator Kevin Archambault. Grief and landscape are both audible in it. It is one of the first ambient records composed, mixed and mastered entirely by women, and it works at a larger emotional and sonic scale than its predecessor.
In her arc, it is the album where the restraint of Luminary meets deeper emotional complexity, and where her classical training shows in the arrangements. Its GRAMMY nomination confirmed that the ambient turn was no detour.
Where to drop in: Track titles aren't documented here. Start at the beginning and treat the album as a single journey, as its making was.
Year: Not documented
Her collaboration with Gem, an Australian artist, widens the palette slightly while keeping the meditative approach intact. It is the most partnership-driven of the three records, and it earned her second GRAMMY nomination in the Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album category.
In her arc, it follows the solitary compositions of Luminary and The Passenger with a shared voice. It shows her core aesthetic holding steady when another artist is in the room.
Where to drop in: Track titles aren't documented here, so begin with the first track and notice where the two sensibilities meet.
Devotional: The Passenger. It was made in the wake of loss, and its emotional honesty suits ceremony and quiet remembrance. Her work is not tied to a specific religious lineage, so the devotion here is personal rather than doctrinal.
Contemplative: According to the Moon. Its shared, unhurried palette suits slow, reflective listening.
Energetic: Her music is not beat-driven, so the closest match is the "energetic peace and focus" she describes for Luminary. Choose it for clear, awake concentration rather than momentum.
Healing: Luminary. It was composed to ease anxiety, and it is the purest distillation of her aesthetic, which makes it the natural place to begin and return.
