Tag Archives: kirtan

Kirtan for the Obama inaurugal

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Graphic: poster of the inauguration event Chant4Change

Poster for the event

CHANT 4 CHANGE, Jan­u­ary 19, 6:30 pm – 11:30 pm, at Church of the Holy City:

 

Cel­e­brate the Inau­gu­ra­tion of Barack Obama on Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. Day with sacred activist Shiva Rea, world-​​renowned kirtan/​chant artists Jai Uttal, Dave Stringer, Gaura Vani & As Kin­dred Spir­its and 400 other con­scious revolutionaries.

I sus­pect that this event is going to sell out very quickly. It’s a rel­a­tively small venue. You can buy tick­ets at Brown Paper Tick­ets at $70 a piece. It’s for a good cause.

Krishna Das

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Thanks to Daily Cup of Yoga, I ran across a recent audio inter­view with Krisha Das on CBC Radio. [MLS: A shame, but the archive only goes back to 2009 now.] I’ve com­mented before that he’s kinda been the sound­track of my yoga prac­tice. The lengthy dis­cus­sion cen­ters on his spir­i­tual prac­tice that par­al­lels his expe­ri­ence with kir­tan music. It really gave new insight into his music. I’ll Krishna Das speak for himself.

A Missed Opportunity

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I was check­ing out Spirit Voy­age Music, a dis­trib­u­tor of sacred music (some would call it New Age), and I real­ized that they are located in north­ern Vir­ginia, in Pur­cel­lville. They are strong on Kun­dalini, but have lots of other world music styles. They also have a ticket out­let for con­certs.

I fol­lowed a link to the blog of one of the employ­ees, Har­gob­ind, and dis­cov­ered that I had just missed a con­cert of Dave Stringer, one of my favorite kir­tan musi­cians, at Wil­low Street Yoga on Sep­tem­ber 15. I will have to add this to my blog roll and ping it fre­quently because he will prob­a­bly be in the know of other con­certs in the DC area.

Call and response

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I am lis­ten­ing to Dave Stringer‘s Japa album, which I bought online. It gives me another chance to lis­ten to Donna de Lory, who sings many of the backup and cho­rus vocals, just as Dave did on her last album. This type of kir­tan is not for med­i­ta­tion, yoga prac­tice or even more casual lis­ten­ing when you just want to leave the music and lyrics in the back­ground — it is just too cel­e­bra­tory, too joy­ous to cul­ti­vate your inner still­ness. Despite the lyrics being in San­skrit and repet­i­tive, I feel myself engaged in the music.

Krishna Das coming to DC in May

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Krishna Das will be com­ing to the Wash­ing­ton, DC area in late May. He will bring his spe­cial inter­pre­ta­tion of kir­tan to Alexan­dria, VA at 8:00 PM on Thurs­day, May 26 at the George Wash­ing­ton Mid­dle School Gym­na­sium, 1005 Mt. Ver­non Avenue, Alexan­dria, VA.

Tick­ets cost $20 each in advance, $25 at the door. Mau­reen Clyne of Prasada Yoga has more infor­ma­tion and tick­ets on sale.

Kir­tan is chant­ing as part of devo­tional yoga and is usu­ally accom­pa­nied by har­mo­ni­ums, tablas, drums and other instru­ments. Krishna Das has become the sound­track of my yoga expe­ri­ence so I will try to make it to the show.

Music reaches deep

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I bought Donna de Lory’s CD called The Lover and the Beloved, put out by Ajna Music [Gone out of busi­ness]. I really like it, more than all the junk on the radio these days. It’s mes­mer­iz­ing. You can hear some extended sam­pling of the cuts at CDBaby — and also buy it there.

I’ve also bought a cou­ple of CDs by Krishna Das who is much more tra­di­tional in his approach to kir­tan chant­ing. He will be per­form­ing in Alexan­dria, VA on Thurs­day, May 26. More infor­ma­tion is on his site.

Why do these artists insist on pub­lish­ing their sites com­pletely in Flash?