One of the most compelling and innovative musicians to have arisen from the yoga communities across the country, Dave Stringer has been profiled in publications as diverse as 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 age-old practice of rhythmic call-and-response mantra chanting that has become popular as a participatory live music happening in hundreds of yoga studios across the US. 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. 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.
Stringer and and his band first started touring widely in 2000, playing up to six nights a week in yoga studios, art galleries and theaters from San Francisco to New York City and Minneapolis to New Orleans, In the past four years Dave has given 359 performances, with total attendance exceeding 25,000 people. He has sold more than 10,000 CDs, primarily at his concerts and on the internet.
Dave works frequently as a producer, writer and session musician, collaborating on recordings with Axiom of Choice, Vas, Rasa, Suzanne Teng, Sheila Nicholls, Donna De Lory, and the Open Door Orchestra. He has performed with other noted kirtan singers Krishna Das, Bhagavan Das and Jai Uttal, and his voice can be heard on the soundtracks of the film Matrix Revolutions and the video game Myst.
"Dave Stringer has integrated his interest in Kirtan, an Indian tradition of devotional chanting, with his masterful grasp of Western popular music, creating an exciting style of psychedelic pop as informed by traditional Eastern music as the Beatles." All Music Guide
"Stringer is an amazing, passionate performer. No, this isn't just gentle, soothing new age music and shouldn't be mistaken for it. It is there to engage the listener and speaks in an intuitive manner to the soul within." Amazon.com
"His plain exterior masks a volcano of a voice. Stringer transported us to another time and place. His fiery, soulful voice gave the entire room a feeling of a down-home gospel jam and one could not help but sing along." LA Yoga Pages
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