Kirtan with Dave Russell at Roots to Wings Yoga

Friday May 7th, 2016

7:30pm

Our dear friends Dave Russell, Holly Hartmann and Russ Nieman, venture to eastern Massachusetts to share their beautiful souls and deeply moving inspirational mantra music. Mike met Dave at Kripalu in 2010. They stayed up talking until after 2am two nights in a row and have not stopped talking since.

In 1971, at age 18, Dave Russell led his first kirtans for Swami Satchidananda’s Integral Yoga Institute (IYI) when Dave was living in an IYI ashram. Over the years since the early 1970s, Dave has studied extensively with Satchidananda, Ram Dass, Bhagavan Das (voice), Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche, Joseph Goldstein, Adyashanti, and others. Dave leads kirtan regularly in Northampton, Kripalu in Lenox, MA, and throughout the Northeast. 

His kirtans are a fusion of devotion and musicality that range in style from sweet (like being hugged) to bluesy and rocking. His chant arrangements revel in both the celebration of our inner divine spark and our deep yearning to stay connected to that spark. He focuses upon the energy of each chant i.e., that each chant calls up a different energy that can be felt in the body and the mind. 

All of his chants have the common thread of opening the heart and ‘filling up at the well’. Through kirtan, he encourages us to feel whatever is in our emotional landscape. In the last few years, he has recorded two CDs: ‘Dancing in the Heart’ and ‘Kirtan for the Material World’.

Dave (vocals and harmonium) will be joined by Holly Hartmann (vocals), and Russ Nieman (percussion).

Please visit his website DaveRussellKirtan.com for YouTubes, bio, calendar, and more.