The Performers
“Music will play a most important role in bringing about world oneness, for music embodies the Universal Heart, the Oneness-Heart. Music transcends the barriers of nations, nationalities and religions.” Sri Chinmoy
The Sahadeva Ensemble
A powerful, dynamic and haunting presentation of the music and poetry of Indian composer Sri Chinmoy arranged and conducted by Sahadeva Torpy.
Here are a selection of tracks taken from different concerts around the world. All songs composed by Sri Chinmoy and arranged by Sahadeva Torpy.
The Sahadeva Ensemble has been an integral part of the International Songs of the Soul concert tours since 2012. In their concerts you are warmly invited to experience meditation in music, music for the soul, to share your aspirations for Oneness and Peace in our world and to leave inspired, energised and emboldened. Musicians have been selected from across the globe. Our string section is from Austria, Canada, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. Our percussionists are from Italy and Ireland, our bass player is from Canada and our singers range from over 7 different countries.
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Sunlit Silence
Adarsha Kelly and Vapushtara Jongepier
A selection of tracks taken from their first Album 'Sunlit Silence'. Adarsha Kelly is a vocalist from Glasgow, Scotland and Vapushtara Jongepier is a pianist from Amsterdam, Holland. All songs are composed by Sri Chinmoy and arranged by Vapushtara.
"We first performed together in 2008 on a ‘Songs of the Soul’ tour in San Diego. I seem to remember the song Vapushtara chose ‘Swapan Tari’. It wasn’t planned - but it worked quite well. We performed it again, a year or so later at another ‘ Songs of the Soul’ concert in New York. At that time Vapushtara was writing arrangements for, and conducting, the Gandarva Loka Orchestra and I was singing occasionally, solo acapella, as I had done for many years for Sri Chinmoy.
It was only in 2018 that we tried to put together a longer performance. We were both invited to tour Australia with some other musicians and the organisers were keen to get us to perform as a duo and fill a 20-minute slot. The tour was a success but afterwards we went our separate ways yet again. Then in November 2022 Vapushtara was invited to perform a concert in Serbia. He invited me at quite short notice after some other musicians cancelled. This time the challenge was to perform for not less than an hour. A full concert. I learned the repertoire by ear from mp3s and also spent about four days in Amsterdam rehearsing.
The concerts were extremely well-received and that finally set us on our way to
performing regularly with each other. Subsequently we have performed in a number of cities including London, Dublin, Bristol, New York, Salzburg, Vienna, Split, Reykjavik and Sofia. In June last year we recorded our first CD in Iceland. It is called Sunlit Silence". Adarsha Kelly
“Music helps the spiritual seeker to go deep within to get the utmost satisfaction from life, from truth, from reality. The spiritual life, in turn, helps music to offer its capacity and its strength, which is the soul’s light, to the world at large.” Sri Chinmoy
Ananda
Ananda is a group of male singers and musicians based mainly in various locations around Great Britain. We arrange the beautiful and haunting melodies of Sri Chinmoy for guitar, harmonium, mandolin, sitar, tablas, violin, keyboard, percussion and voice. All the songs have a meditative quality and we try to express this quality whilst performing. For these series of A New World of Peace concerts other musicians from around the world have joined the group from Austria, Italy, Iceland, The Netherlands and the USA.
We perform in concerts all over the UK and Europe. We have played in both Bristol and Lincoln Cathedrals, Glasgow Mela, the Louvre in Paris, the Kunstlerhaus in Vienna, Rydal Cave in the Lake District and to around 1000 people at Tribeca Performing Arts Center in New York.