Sunday, September 11th
www.davestringer.com
About Dave Stringer
Dave Stringer has been profiled in Time, Billboard, In Style,
and Yoga Journal as a leader of the new American kirtan
movement. Kirtan (from the Sanskrit word meaning “to
sing”) is an ancient practice of mantra chanting that
has become popular as a participatory live music experience
in hundreds of yoga studios across the U.S. As Dave says,
at a kirtan “You’re not just listening to the
music, you are the music.“Dave’s sound marries
the transcendent mysticism of traditional Indian instruments
with the exuberant, groove-oriented sound of American gospel
music. Initially trained as a visual artist and jazz musician,
Dave started chanting in the early 1990’s when a film
editing project brought him to the ashram of Swami Muktananda
in India. After returning to the US, Dave taught meditation
and chanting to prison inmates, and began leading kirtans
at yoga studios in Los Angeles and Chicago.In the past four
years Dave and his band have toured all over the United
States, Canada and Europe, giving more than 400 performances.
His voice can also be heard on the soundtracks of the film
Matrix Revolutions and the video game Myst.
About Kirtan
Kirtan is a folk form that arose from the devotional Bhakti
yoga movement of 15th century India. The primary musical
feature of kirtan is the use of call and response, a figure
that also deeply informs Western bluegrass, gospel music
and jazz. The form is simple: a lead group calls out the
melodies and the mantras.
The intention of Kirtan is consciousness-transformative,
directing the singers to vanish into the song as drops merge
into the ocean. Sanskrit is the mother tongue of many modern
languages, and a kind of periodic table of elemental sound-meaning.
The mantras are primarily recitations of names given to
the divine. But perhaps the true understanding of the mantras
can be found in the sense of unity, well-being and timelessness
that they elicit. The mantras quiet the mind, and the music
frees the heart. Ecstasy is both the process and the product.
