Echoes of the Heart: Kirtan w/ Shantala & Friends

Please join us as we are returning to the Portland Insight Meditation Center as part of our Fall 2024 "Echoes of the Heart" tour. Featuring Steve Gorn, Sean Frenette, Kristin Wheary and Kat MacMillan.

About The Artists...

HEATHER and BENJY WERTHEIMER have been leading kirtan (sacred chanting) worldwide since 2001 as the duo SHANTALA. They are known for their special gift of bringing the audience into a vast and loving experience through their unique blend of exquisite voices with instruments of India and the West. Together they create music with beauty, passion, and reverence. Heather and Benjy have released many beautiful and well-loved albums of sacred chant music since 2003, including Living Waters, Jaya, LIVE in love, Sri, The Love Window, LIVE2love and FIVE. They also have a passionate international online following, with hundreds of thousands of YouTube video views, millions of iTunes/Apple Music downloads, and millions of streams on Spotify. Shantala has performed and recorded internationally with such sacred music luminaries as Krishna Das, Deva Premal & Miten, and Jai Uttal.

STEVE GORN has performed Indian classical music on the bansuri bamboo flute in concerts and festivals throughout the world. A disciple of Sri Gour Goswami of Kolkata, and Pandit Raghunath Seth of Mumbai, he is well known to audiences in India and the west. He has been praised by critics and leading Indian musicians as one of the few westerners recognized to have captured the subtlety and beauty of Indian music.  A Grammy winner and five time Grammy nominee, Steve Gorn is creating a new idiom, a music that combines the essence of classical Indian tradition with a contemporary world music sensibility. The strength of this music arises from a virtuoso mastery, generating a vibrant fusion, alive and accessible to western ears. From Indian classical music to world music and jazz projects with Paul Simon, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Winter and others, Steve infuses great mastery with a haunting, lyrical sweetness to bring the healing breath of the sacred to our demanding contemporary lives.

Guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer-songwriter SEAN FRENETTE has been inspiring audiences with the passion, virtuosity, and spirit of his unique musical performances. With 3 string guitar, electric-classical guitar, woodwinds, piano and voice, Sean artfully blends improvisation and slow-crafted composition, as well as a great breadth of musical influences (Michael Hedges, Eliot Fisk, Jimi Hendrix,  Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, Björk, Jeff Buckley, Fela Kuti, Tool, Thelonius Monk, Debussy, and Bach.) That Sean's solo music covers a wide range is not surprising given his background: he is a conservatory-trained classical guitarist, a long-time student of Indian classical vocal music, a prolific composer, a wildly creative improviser, and a passionate educator. Sean's love and appreciation of music and art from all over the world and from many time periods comes through in the joyful way in which he weaves his own music of the many threads humanity has collectively spun. Sean's music is a sprawling synthesis of innovation and tradition, a vibrant, captivating musical tapestry.

KAVITA KAT MACMILLAN is a musician, yoga instructor, workshop facilitator and transformational creative guide who brings over 20 years of teaching & sharing kirtan & study of nada (sound) yoga to her classes and offerings. Kavita's 'Open Heart Kirtan' presents traditional mantras in original compositions with Western and Indian influences. Through her musical offerings, yoga asana classes & ‘Open your Voice ~ Open your Heart’ workshops, Kavita guides students towards authentic voice & movement focused on letting go of patterns that get in the way of artistic expression. Kavita’s album “The Beloved Lives Inside” is available for streaming worldwide.