I am happy to celebrate with you today the long awaited release the Yoga Revolution CD.

Yoga Revolution is the first in a series of benefit albums that bring together musical icons (Sting, Peter Gabriel, Sheryl Crow), international artists (Snatam Kaur, Angelique Kidjo, Anoushka Shankar) and rising kirtan stars (Krishna Das, Deva Premal, Donna De Lory) to raise funds for yoga-based fitness programming for youth. In addition to supporting a great cause, my goal was to use the transformational power of music to inspire and encourage people of all ages and backgrounds, far beyond the yoga community, to experience the positive benefits of yoga. In the sense that the essential meaning of yoga is to connect, I considered all of the artists I selected to be yogis. Many do practice the techiques, but each has created their music from a place deep within themselves, in connection with spirit and with an intention to help each of us, as listeners, become more deeply connected to ourselves and one another.

The impetus for Yoga Revolution began when my friend Johannes shared his vision to bring the power of yoga to the masses by offering free yoga and health education through a program he created called Yoga Month. Through the national Yoga Month campaign, Johannes and his Yoga Health Foundation set out to teach the general public about yoga’s many health benefits and to support in-school yoga programs for youth. I knew from the beginning that music could contribute meaningfully to the cause. I had also long wanted to create a yoga-inspired CD that could reach the far beyond the yoga community, while still having the highest integrity among devotee’s.  When I shared my vision for a compilation CD with Nettwerk Music CEO and yogi Terry McBride, he agreed to Executive Produce the project and release it, donating the net proceeds to benefit the Yoga Health Foundation’s yoga and fitness programs.

It is an eclectic but universally appealing collection of music that I guarantee will positively affect your system just by listening. I recommend keeping a copy in your car for your next long drive or traffic jam. As quoted in Yoga Journal: “Yoga Revolution merges music by Sarah McLachlan, Michael Franti, Ziggy Marley and Sheryl Crow, along with cross-cultural collaborations between Sting and Anoushka Shankar, Peter Gabriel and Angelique Kidjo and Seal and Guru Singh, while mixing in new material by rising kirtan stars Krishna Das, Deva Premal and Donna De Lory. The CD flows seamlessly through an inspiring and diverse 14-track mix ranging from Irish folk, a rock anthem and bilingual world music to 5,000 year old Vedic chants over hip hop beats, including a kirtan reworking of the Yardbirds 1965 hit: For Your Love.”

You can learn more about the project, order the CD, get a free download or sign up for free yoga at www.YogaRevolution.org, where I will be sharing more music and info about the many amazing artists who contributed.  You also learn about similar projects at www.EarthTones.org and receive a free Yoga Revolution CD for a donation of $25 or more.

Join the Revolution and enjoy the music!

With the rise of Kirtan events and artsts in the West, many people are probably asking the question: What is Kirtan?  Since I am about to release a CD that unites many of these Kirtan singers (Krishna Das, Guru Singh, Snatam Kaur, Wah!, Donna De Lory) with with pop music I]icons (Seal, Sting, Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow), I though I should try to share a little light on the subject.

Kirtan is an ancient devotional vedic tradition in which chants are performed to bring the singers, through the vibration of the mantras being chanted and the emotional dedication of the participants, closer to the divine. Kirtan is traditionally performed in a call and response manner between the leader or Kirtankar, and the participating audience.  Traditional musical acompaniment might be a harmonium, percussion, hand cymbals and a tambura for a drone, though many Western Kirtan artists have added more contemporary instruments like guitar, bass, drums, etc.  Kirtanam is the practice of recreating sound vibrations that is said to shift the entire vibration of the body and mind into the vibrating energy of the transcendental. Traditional Kirtan in India was a major practice in the Bhakti and Sikh traditions.

So how did this esoteric practice start to become popular in the West?  Some claim Paramhansa Yogananda introduced Kirtan when he performed sacred chants with a full house at Carnegie Hall as early as 1923. Kirtan became more popular in the 60′s thanks to Swami Prabhupada as well as the Hare Krishna movement, the latter of which helped to inspire George Harrison and John Lennon with thieir renditions of mantras like Hare Krishna.  In recent years, new rising kirtan stars, like Krishna Das, Jai Utall, Deva Premal and Donna De Lory have mixed traditional Kirtan music and practices with more modern Western music, contemporary instrumentation and even some english lyrics, making it more accessible to new audiences and further increasing it’s popularity.  Although traditionalist sometimes claim that altering the the mantra from it’s original melody changes the vibration and effectiveness, it could also be argued that the participants ability to more easily connect to and emotionally engage with more familiar musical styles makes up for that, if not increasing the transformational effect on the singer.

Kirtan events (large and small gatherings where a musical/devotional leader leads a call and response practice with the audience, have been popping up with far more regularity across the US and Western Europe and more and more yoga asana teachers are incorporating mantra and chanting into their classes and workshops. I had the pleasure of performing last year at the first Bhakti Festival Joshua Tree, California, which brought together dozens of kirtan artists and performers for a couple days of aounnd-the-clock performances involving audiences of thousands. Some record labels, like Nutone, White Swan and Spirit Voyage, have focused on providing new music for audiences looking for devotional music and mantras as used in Kirtan events.

Kirtan offers, through the vibrational power and emotionally engaging qualities of music, another way to meditate and free oneself from the daily chatter of their own mind and to more deeply connect to one’s inner self and true nature.  Any musical tradition that does that in a time when so many forces in the world are pulling us in the opposite direction, can’t be all bad.

Today I would like to share an article from the the Huffington Post by Tara Stiles, in which she shares her experience with and admiration for Kirtan singer Krishna Das.  Krishna Das is one of the most resonating Western voices caring the tradition and expanding the reach of Kirtan.  He is also featured on the opening track from our upcoming CD, Yoga Revolution in a hybrid Sanskrit and classic rock remake of For Your Love (the 1965 Rock Hit by the Rascals). The CD is coming out March 30th on Time Life and can be pre-ordered at Yoga Revolution.  I also highly recommend experiencing one of the shows from his upcoming tour with the European diva of Kirtan, Deva Premal.  The US tour starts March 24th.  We will be posting the full tour schedule on the Yoga Revolution site.