ABOUT KIRTAN FLIGHT SCHOOL

Musicians and audiences in America and Europe are reinvigorating this ancient musical form with modern

ideas and techniques drawn from their own rich traditions. As the audience widens, many people are

becoming inspired to participate in Kirtan groups, or introduce chanting to their yoga classes.

If you are one of those people, this workshop is for you.

Leading kirtan, or supporting it by playing a variety of instruments, always requires the intention

of opening the heart. But it also involves the skillful use of a number of arrangement techniques.

Direct experience is the best way to learn them.

In this hands-on workshop:

All of the participants are organized into small ensembles. Each ensemble then chooses a chant,

rehearses it together, and presents a kirtan. The instructors rotate through the groups, working closely with

the participants to develop rhythmic and harmonic concepts, problem solving, and answering questions.

The history and  philosophy of kirtan are also intensively explored, and participants learn how to

present and discuss the mantras.

Participants are encouraged to bring musical instruments with them, but it is understood that the most important

instruments are human voices and hands.  Instruction will be offered in playing the harmonium and finger cymbals,

and a limited number of these instruments will be on hand for use by all.

SCHEDULE

FRIDAY MORNING

Opening kirtan circle.

Introduction to history and philosophy of kirtan.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

Introduction to finger cymbals and harmonium.

FRIDAY EVENING

Developing kirtan musical arrangements workshop.

Small groups assigned, chants chosen.

SATURDAY MORNING

Instructors work intensively with small groups,

problem solving and offering guidance.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Vocal workshop.

Explaining mantras workshop.

Instructors work intensively with small groups, problem solving and offering guidance.

SATURDAY EVENING KIRTAN @ TRIANGLE YOGA 8pm

SUNDAY MORNING

Ensembles lead kirtan for the assembled group of participants.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

Workshop on playing music for yoga classes and using mantras in yoga classes.

SUNDAY EVENING

Feedback and discussion.

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. A spontaneous and articulate public speaker, he probes the dilemmas

of the spirit with a sly and unorthodox sense of humor. His work translates the ancient traditions of kirtan and yoga into

inspiring and thoroughly modern participatory theatre, open to a multiplicity of interpretations, and accessible to all.

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. When the editing project ended, he remained in

India to teach school in a rural village, and continued studying the traditions of yoga with Swami Chidvilasananda.

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. He has collaborated on recordings with Vas, Rasa, Donna De Lory, Axiom of Choice, Suzanne Teng,

and Sheila Nicholls, and has performed with other noted kirtan singers Krishna Das and Jai Uttal. His voice can also

be heard on the soundtracks of the film Matrix Revolutions and the video game Myst.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

“India blasted me into billions of spinning particles and then slowly reshaped me, a process that was somehow both

excruciating and ecstatic. I can’t begin to claim complete knowledge of all of the layers of philosophy represented

by the mantras I learned to chant while I was there, but I can attest to their power.

I once read that Thomas Jefferson took a copy of the Bible and cut out the parts that most resonated with him,

then reassembled his selections into a work that reflected his own way of saying his prayers. I suppose it is fair

to say that as an artist, I am engaged in something of a similar process with yoga. I don’t know exactly where

the journey I am making ends. I’m just trying to report honestly from where I am.

Though Kirtan is rooted in a very old and profoundly joyful Eastern tradition, as a Westerner, I don’t know that it is

possible for me to be traditional. I can’t help but bring my own cultural biases with me. My intention, however, is to be

authentic, in the sense that what I am doing originates in my heart. For me, to align the individual-dissolving Eastern tradition

of kirtan with the individual-affirming Western traditions of gospel and jazz and rock music is no contradiction. Both arise from

the same impulse toward giving form to what is ecstatic and liberating and transcendent. “

Dave's new CD

Divas & Devas is Dave Stringer's amazing new album of East Indian bhajans with contemporary arrangements,

sung as male-female duets, in Sanskrit, Hindi and Marathi. The album is rich with the romantic and intimate interplay of masculine and feminine,

gesturing toward the larger relationship of the human and the divine. The arrangements also echo this dual interplay employing traditional Indian

instruments such as tablas, sarangi and santoor, along with Western instruments such as vibes, cello, trumpet, flute, mandolin and lap steel.

In Dave's Words:
Eight of the songs are a collaboration between me and a different diva ( I use this term with great affection and respect):

Donna Delory, Dasi Karnamrita, C.C. White, Kim Waters, Sat-Kartar, Suzanne Sterling, Wah!, and Joni Allen.

Each singer is evocative of different qualties, with my voice as the through-line.

The opening song is an ensemble piece on which all of the divas sing with me.

I was first exposed to the tradition of Indian devotional song when I lived at Gurudev Siddha Peeth in Ganshpuri,

in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Many notable bhajan and qawaali singers passed through the ashram,

and I was very moved by the ecstasy and the stillness that radiated from them. The words they sang were written

in India centuries ago during the era of the bhakti poet-saints, but they still spoke to me in a voice that seemed clear and modern,

and these words continue to inform my thinking and my practice. In this recording, I have set some of these poems to my own original

musical compositions. Other songs come directly from the rich musical tradition that has been transmitted to me through the lineage of Siddha Yoga.

The English word diva conveys a number of shades of meaning, some complimentary and some pejorative,

ranging from accomplished artist through demanding ego. The origin of the term, however, is the Sanskrit word deva,

which means luminous, shining, god, or heavenly one. And it is toward this original meaning that much artistic expression ultimately points.

For me then, the title of this CD, ‘Divas and Devas’, refers to the relationship of our limited sense of self to the expansive awareness

that we call divine love, as one reaches toward the other.

Dave's Divas:
Top Row: Donna De Lory, Dasi Karnamrita, C.C. White, Kim Waters
Bootom Row: Sat Kartar, Suzanne Sterling, Wah!, Joni Allen

Jamming at Gabriel Pelli's House 2008