CO GALWAY singer-songwriter Jack Harrison sings in Sanskrit, Irish, and English and his music fuses kirtan chant, gospel, and Irish folk and trad.
Jack and his band will play St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church on Saturday August 8 at 8pm. Proceeds from the event will go to Jigsaw Galway.
Kirtan chant is part of the path of Devotional Bhakti Yoga. It’s a call and response structure which is associated with the healing and transformational capacity of sound and is rooted in the Indian yoga tradition.
Its sense of spiritual inquiry has led Harrison on a deep personal journey distilling the music, culture and traditions of East and West. For example, he combines the Indian Gaiatri Mantra with the ‘Song of Aimhirghin’ from the Old Irish version by Finola Ó Siochrú
“This song has the first word ‘Ám’ which means ‘I am’ in old Irish,” explains Harrison. “The sound of this word is very similar to ‘Om’ and has huge resonance for the yoga community.”
Harrison is enjoying considerable popularity in India and Thailand and his albums Sailing With Dragons and Wind Across The Sea are played all over the world in yoga centres. Wind Across The Sea is the result of an invitation from Yoga Thailand to bring an Irish band and recording engineer out to Koh Samui to produce a collaborative synthesis of mystical sounds and melodies.
Harrison has performed in festivals, retreats, and classical concerts in India, Thailand, America and Europe. It seems kirtan is the new rock’n’roll, with the world’s first boutique yoga and rock festival Wanderlust taking place this summer at Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe, California.
The show will be opened by Tony Bates, founding director of Headstrong, who devised and supported Jigsaw Galway. Jigsaw is a free and confidential support service for those aged 15 to 25 to help them deal with any concerns they may have about their physical or mental health. It also has a youth-friendly drop-in centre on Mary Street where young people can access a range of qualified professionals. See www.jigsawgalway.ie
Tickets are €15/12 and available from Charlie Byrnes Book Shop (091 - 561766 ) and Zhivago Records (091 - 509950 ).
