ABOUT KIRTAN

Kirtan is a simple yet powerful practice that opens the heart & frees the mind through simple, call & response, chanting of sacred mantras. It's power is beyond words. During the evening I will lead you through a collection of simple chants & spiritual songs, drawn mainly from the Yogic & Buddhist traditions, with other favourites and maybe a few of my own songs thrown in...

You are invited to join in the chant or to rest in the group vibration, to whatever degree you feel comfortable. No experience is necessary and you don’t need to be a good ‘singer’ - kirtan is about expressing your heart through your voice, within a non-judgemental sacred sound space. You may find it uplifting, calming, quieting, energising.....all of these things and many more... but most of all Kirtan, as a form of Bhakti Yoga (the Yoga of Devotion), speaks to the heart, & brings you back into it; back home.

First timers need not worry - I hold a space for a simple, friendly gathering. You are welcome to come & sing, to dance, to make some noise....or to just come, listen, be.... No experience necessary, your presence is all that is required :) Come and experience the love that you are, through the power of your own sound. Free from expectation, free from judgement, I invite you to sing out & shine.

I have been leading Kirtan since 2008, when my teachers in London started asking me to lead chants. I am mostly self-taught as a singer & harmonium player, following my many years training as a Pianist in the Western Classical Tradition. I now play & sing for the love of it. It's been a beautiful shift, & somehow it remains unpredictable in a beautiful way - I am grateful to Santa Shakya for his wisdom with Tibetan Bowls, & I am grateful to Source for shining light through sound & showing me a different way for freedom of expression through & as sound itself.

 

P.S. Why I will not judge the way you sing...

I spent ten years at Music College - from age 19 - 29 I made my way through 3 top London institutions & got 3 certificates, a College Prize, & a fully funded postgraduate place at the RAM. I specialised in putting sounds together for the sake of investigation into sound itself, beyond tonality, fully experimental. And then I mixed it up with mixed-media artists to put on shows that investigated how sounds & visuals & all kinds of performance can work together, acoustic & digital, live & pre-recorded / filmed. So....tonality & note-perfect performance aren't so important to me - texture, colour, & timbre all are, & most important is of course the backdrop they show up in. I'll never un-learn the lessons I learnt from John Cage & I carry them into every Yoga class that I practise or teach, as well of course as into Sound Healing & Kirtan. It goes without saying that I let sounds be themselves. I've been tuning into the silence behind the sounds for quite some time.

Not to mention as well that at the final curtain on my most important piano recital many years ago, I messed it up. All that training but in (what felt at the time like) the 'most important moment' it was not meant to be. Note-perfect perfection eluded me. And I cried for so so many years. I still sometimes cry over that. But at the same time I completely know that it was absolutely & completely perfect. The sounds weren't complaining - in the greater organising force  everything was totally perfect. Sometimes things just have to crash in order for you to see the beauty of the chaotic moment. And for it to open you to new pathways & ways of seeing & being in the world, free from the pressure of formidable self-expectation & control.

I will not judge the way you show up in your music. I'm just so happy that you came.