SOUNDS OF COMPASSION...
The Harmonic Presence Foundation is dedicated to sharing
the essential practices and teachings for recognizing and realizing
the true nature of harmony inside and out universe,
including its utterly fundamental presence in the human mind, heart and body.
The quality of its reverberations depend on the level of our listening, attunement,
and practice of one of life's most essential skills-- the art of accompaniment.
"The music of the spheres" includes the ultimate reality of the inner spheres,
which resonate as experience, contemplation, communication and understanding.
The result at each stage of accomplished practice is "well-tuned being."
The starting point is always the search for self-knowledge--
how to listen, and how to listen-in to the deeper music,
silence and harmony of inner being.
With that ongoing discovery, we become better and better "first responders" in the present moment,
learning to compassionately accompany the music of all spheres.
We are devoted to sharing as widely as possible
the creatively inspired, deep and joyful Harmonic Chant,
developed with David Hykes since 1975,
as well as the Harmonic Presence contemplative awareness practices
linking music, meditation, the mind, and healing harmonization.

There is space available in the 2012 HARMONIC PRESENCE ONLINE PROGRAM,
for students around the world to have online sessions with David Hykes,
to be immersed in a "music of the spheres," the Harmonic Chant lineage practices,
and the Harmonic Presence contemplative awareness and healing work.
For information and application details, you can download the brochure (click here).

We had a very inspiring tour and pilgrimage to India,
including time in Dharamsala at His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Namgyal Monastery,
and then in Bir, at Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's wonderful Deer Park Institute .
We were then in Delhi for ten days, where we offered a week of
Harmonic Chant lineage concerts with the Harmonic Choir,
as well as Harmonic Presence teachings and seminars
in and around the International Festival of Sacred Arts in Delhi.
(An article about our visit appeared in the Times of India.
You can read it here.)

Composer-singer and contemplative awareness accompanist David Hykes
has developed the Harmonic Chant lineage practices, since 1975 through
concerts with his group,The Harmonic Choir,
albums, seminars, conferences, presentations
and contemplative retreats.

The Harmonic Choir includes outstanding senior collaborating artists Timothy Hill, Seth Markel, Joel Bluestein,
flutist Stéphane Gallet (France), percussionists Ev Mann and Bruno Caillat (France);
and supporting artists Fred LeVan and cellist Andrei Kivu (France).

David Hykes
the wonderful Sufi singer and composer from Delhi, India,
Dr. Madan Gopal Singh, the brilliant young Qawwali singer, Dhruv Sangari,
and the Harmonic Choir
had wonderful musical meetings of mind and heart
during the International Sacred Arts Festival in Delhi, in March, 2010,
and gave three soaring concerts together around New York state in May.
There will be more joint concerts of their "Sufi Music and the Harmonic Spheres"
in India and the US, and we will soon have news about recordings
of the wonderful concerts.

Described by the New York Times as a "composer-mystic",
Hykes is also a singer, meditation teacher, retreat/seminar leader, visual artist, and cultural contemplative.
.
In addition to concerts around the world,
often with The Harmonic Choir,
David conducts Harmonic Presence music and meditation seminars and contemplative retreats,
at Pommereau, a peaceful retreat center in a park and forest near Paris, France,
as well as in the USA, Denmark, and many other countries.

The contemplative Harmonic Presence work David teaches is a non-sectarian approach
to self-development, well-being, healing and spiritual growth,
which is equal parts creative art, spiritual training, and healing harmonization.
These 3 main branches and concerns could be described as follows:

1. To make possible the embodied experience and vision of a contemplative music of the spheres, available to all,
which can help attune us evermore deeply to the needs of harmony in this very life on earth: the Harmonic Chant lineage practices.

2. To delve deeply into essential contemplative practice, through accompanied group and guided group meditation training,
a wonderful voyage of exploration, discovery and recognition of the deeper nature within: the Harmonic Awareness work

3. To find clear and compassionate "healing harmonization,"
almost like an atmosphere of natural blessings,
which comes through the unique "harmonic spirit" David Hykes brings to this work,
nourished and guided by his studies and immersions in Tibetan Buddhist traditions,
the Gurdjieff Work, Christianity, Native American tradition, Indian classical music and Sufism: healing harmonization.

David's pioneering work the past 35 years linking mind, music, meditation,
and holistic medicine has included projects with His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
the Mind and Life Institute, the Gyuto Monks, and raga singer Sheila Dhar,
among many others, and shows how integrative harmonic knowledge can help
bring about deep harmonization and transformation--
especially on a planet like this in times like these!
And-- in people like ourselves!

For information, you can e-mail us,
or you can call the Foundation office in the US at +1 203 987 5416, or in France at +33 9 52 56 74 69.

"The Harmonic Presence Foundation offers concerts, seminars, retreats, teachings and residencies all over the world,
spreading a form of knowledge which joins the sciences at their most intangible level,
where what appears as matter turns out to be pure energy.

This music which David Hykes brings us, from the harmonic series, being, as he says the musical DNA,
the source of all the music we know, which gives us life,
also provides an extraordinary 'Genesis Chapter' for musical education at all levels."
--the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin, renowned violinist and yogi.

Here are two videos of David Hykes in concert in Paris on YouTube:

"Spectral Path";

and

"Harmonic Opening"

THE SOUND OF YOUR LISTENING...
Encouragement of the spiritual inquiry dimension, "listening in" to the deeper nature of self and reality,
includes blending the primordial sacred sound stream, Harmonic Chant,
with contemplative practices uniting music, meditation, and the medicine of deep harmonization.
This work cultivates a spirit of service to Harmony,
in the world, in oneself and for all beings, and develops mindfulness,
compassion, healing, and a sense of greater potential well-being in all spheres --all octaves-- of this Creation.

SOUNDS OF VOICES OF EXPERIENCE...

Says experienced teacher and human resources consultant Crystal Forthomme of the Real Change Network
about David's Harmonic Presence retreats:

"David is wonderful. He embodies what he teaches, is funny, engaging and a master of opening
to the healing energy of sound/vibration/harmonics. A brilliant pioneer and practitioner."

David Hykes served on the faculty of the Mind and Life Institute,
which brings together leading neuroscientists and contemplative practitioners
with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other spiritual teachers to study the transformation of the mind and brain through meditation.
He gave the closing evening concert with his group,
The Harmonic Choir, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their breakthrough album,
"Hearing Solar Winds," the best-selling overtone album of all time.

Hearing Solar Winds, Harmonic Worlds, and the recent "Harmonic Meeting" concert DVD from Paris are available here.

You can read some texts about David Hykes's work by spiritual and cultural luminaries here,
and you can read testimonials from some of the many people who have studied with or received healing sounds work by David Hykes
and have had deep musical, meditative and/or healing experiences here.
David Hykes is a renowned and award-winning composer, singer, and widely-respected researcher of contemplative music practice.
He has been teaching the contemplative and spiritual awareness practices called the Harmonic Presence work since 1980.
He has had the honor to contribute his universal sacred music in festivals, Cathedrals and spiritual
centers around the world, and especially to projects and events in service to:
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Gyuto and Gyume Monks, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoché, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoché
and the Rangjung Yeshe Institute, and Tsoknyi Rinpoché.

Feel free to contact us with any questions or for more information
by e-mail or phone: the Foundation office in the US at +1 631 907 6290 or in France at +33 9 52 56 74 69.

Since September 11, 1981, our Foundation, founded at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine,
has served the aim of sharing a universal contemplative music of our time.
To serve the cause of better inner and outer Harmony,
we share our work, research, discoveries, teachings and practices about the deep relationships
between primordial and sacred sound, listening awareness and the mind,
meditation practice, healing harmonization and well-being.

David Hykes is a recognized pioneer and
respected teacher of musical spirituality and contemplative practice with over 30 years of experience.
Harmonic Chant (harmonic singing) is a universal contemplative music practice
based on the natural harmonic presence found at the heart of all musical sound in the universe
as well as deep in the heart of our listening consciousness.
Collaborations over the years have included events with His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
the Gyuto and Gyume Monks, concerts in sacred spaces and retreat teachings in over 20 countries,
as well as many film scores, including major Buddhist motion pictures,
such as Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoché's "Travellers and Magicians" and John Bush's trilogy "Journey Into Buddhism."
He is an award-winning composer and singer whose 12 albums of music,
beginning with "Hearing Solar Winds," his landmark album with The Harmonic Choir,
have been the single most important west source of inspiration
for the harmonic sounds movement world-wide.


Here again: the first 2012 calendar of David's teachings in Freance
, with other concerts and teachings to be announced.

Our Foundation organizes international seminars, retreats, concerts and festivals,
sharing global teachings which explore the deep nature of harmony in mind, life, and the universe, along with practices which help our re-attunement to it.
Through the universal contemplative music called Harmonic Chant, mindfulness and meditation training, and healing harmonization practices,
we share inspiring ways of opening the heart, clearing the mind, and harmonizing the body.
Our events are a way to bring people together inside and out, for deeper harmony, healing and understanding.
Our work is for all those seeking deeper awareness and attunement to essential nature of harmony in oneself, life, and the universe.

David Hykes and the Foundation work actively in support of the quest for greater global harmony and respect for human rights.
Therefore we strongly endorse the quest of the people of Tibet for basic human rights, both political and spiritual.

Deeply devoted to the ideal of religious freedom,
the Foundation has offered sacred music to projects and events with His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
the Gyuto and Gyume Monks, the Nuns of Nagi Gompa and Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Tsoknyi Rinpoché,
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoché, and others.
David has been on television news programs twice recently in France, on behalf of the Tibetan cause,
and continues to offer concerts for Tibet on a regular basis.

As an offering to your listening, here is his composition "Prayer Song for Tibet," (copyright Harmonic Presence Foundation 2008 all rights reserved)
from a recent concert in France for the organization Solidarité Tibet.

Harmonic Chant, a fusion of sacred chant
and overtone-based "throat-singing," reveals and explores the essential harmonic nature
of contemplative mind in relation to the music of the spheres.


Hykes's music and teachings explore the harmonic nature of vibration
found at every scale in the universe, for harmonics are to musical sound what the color spectrum is to light.
They are the vibratory DNA of all music in this resounding Creation,
from the still-echoing harmonics of the Big Bang, to the harmonics of stars. Closest to home, we can discover the deep chord
of our own being-- the harmonics of mind, heart and body.

The 13 albums of the music, the concerts around the world,
the retreats, international seminars and master classes
in many countries the past 33 years continue inspire,
help, and reattune thousands of listeners, musicians and contemplative practioners.
David's work as a healing accompanist to those facing serious or life-threatening illness or problems
is more and more coming to the fore.
You can read testmonials and articles about David's work and music from listeners, patients,
spiritual teachers, leading cultural figures and yoga teachers here.

The Harmonic Presence work brings to life teachings and practices for deep harmonization, attunement and communication,
based on a universal music available to all. You are more than welcome to participate in our programs,
and you can also help by making donations to the Harmonic Presence Foundation,
our not-for-profit organization based in New York and France.

Because of our Foundation's devotion to events that foster the growth of authentic knowledge and direct experience of essential Harmony,
especially in ways that connect Mind, Meditation, Music and Medicine,
we have hosted seminars and retreats with leading spiritual teachers like revered Tibetan Buddhist lama
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoché and the Nuns of Nagi Gompa from Nepal.
We also support the enlightened and compassionate activities of the renowned lama Tsoknyi Rinpoche
and his Pundarika Foundation, and the amazing Nangchen Nuns.


Our project in New York, the first wave of our Festival entitled "Resonance and Radiance: Sacred Music, Sacred Mind",
brought together practitioners of traditional and contemporary sacred chant
to explore the emerging relationships between mind, music, meditation and medicine.

You can download the brochure here.

This year marks the 27th anniversary of "HEARING SOLAR WINDS,"
Hykes's landmark album with The Harmonic Choir, which launched the contemporary harmonic and healing sounds movement,
has inspired countless listeners, singers and "sound healers", and remains the best-loved overtone recording of all time,
with over 300,000 copies sold to date.

Among the most widely-influential recordings of sacred sounds in sacred space ever made,
"Hearing Solar Winds" opened ears world-wide to marvelous new realms of harmonic sound.

"Hearing Solar Winds," and Hykes's 11 albums since, including the recent HARMONIC WORLDS,
continue to inspire thousands of listeners around the world
in seeking finer attunement to harmonic realms of sound and spirit.



The Harmonic Presence teachings have ripened through intensive retreats, seminars and research
conducted around the world over the past 33 years.
The Harmonic Presence teachings offer an integral, non-dual approach to recognizing reality in this life,
through attunement to the deepest principles of Harmony-- that which resonates everywhere, from the heart to the heavens.

Recognition and attunement to those deep harmonic principles can come through meditative awareness training,
sacred sound work, and healing harmonization practices. Then awareness and compassion awake within.
We can find and cultivate the purest harmonics of our being-- the light in the mind, the love in the heart,
and the universal resonances of the body attuned.



The principle forms of Hykes's work are concerts and "Harmonic Meetings" with public groups;
Teachings, retreats, seminars, workshops, and presentations in different countries,
including his main retreat center near Paris, France; and recorded music and teachings.

David Hykes also offers a Harmonic Presence online study program,
dedicated to helping motivated students around the world maintain contact
and develop their practice in their own lives.

The online program is also dedicated to helping individuals around the world
who are struggling with or recovering from serious or life-threatening illness.

David will be giving the 13th annual English-language Harmonic Presence summer retreat
by the sea again this year in Denmark, July, 2012.

Again, for info about concerts, teachings, retreats, workshops and seminars, you can download the brochure here!.
< br>

Some of our other spiritual and interfaith activities include
contributing original Harmonic Chant and Mantra compositions to the three recent films of "Journey Into Buddhism" by John Bush,
endorsed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, distributed by WGBH/PBS around the country and abroad.

We have also released a concert DVD, " HARMONIC MEETING",
an evening with DAVID HYKES AND THE HARMONIC CHOIR, filmed live in Paris, and now available for on-line order!

Harmonic Chant and the Harmonic Presence work have been nourished
by over 3 decades of retreats, experiences, research and intensive sharing
and collaboration by David Hykes with The Harmonic Choir and other musicians.
Perhaps the main mystery of the flowering of the work is explained by the extraordinay nourishment,
blessings and challenges received from both great spiritual teachers (including leading teachers of the Gurdjieff Work and Tibetan Buddhism) and great musical mentors (including Yehudi Menuhin and Sheila Dhar).

In a larger sense, "The Harmonic Choir," the living sound of this exact and exacting work,
includes the thousands with whom the work has been shared since 1975, and the thousands of musicians, "sound healers" and others
inspired indirectly by the harmonic vision.

The Wisdom traditions and teachers of Tibet, India, the Gurdjieff work, and the West remain important influences and inspirations.
David has a long immersion in Eastern and Western spiritual studies,
sacred music, cosmology, and yogas of sound.

Hykes was the first westerner to connect deeply with the "throat-singing" traditions of Mongolia, Tuva and Tibet,
but Harmonic Chant has evolved along a unique new songline path and employs
a unique set of ideas, techniques and principles.

David started laying the groundwork for the modern harmonic and healing sounds movement as a young musician and spiritual student in New York in 1975,
the year he created The Harmonic Choir, the western world's oldest and pre-eminent overtone ensemble.
His most direct influence and supporters were his root guru, Lord John Pentland of the Gurdjieff Foundation,
and the Honorable James George, retired Canadian ambassador and also an eminent Gurdjieffian and distinguished spiritual authority.

Hykes was invited to Mongolia in 1981 (after 6 years of diplomatic hurdles),
and upon return to Paris, thanks to James George's intervention on his behalf,
received priceless teachings on sacred sound and breath from the late, great Tibetan master, Thuksey Rinpoche,
one of His Holiness the 12th Gyalwaung Drukpa's root teachers (from whom David has also received teachings).

Hykes, the Foundation, and the Harmonic Choir co-hosted events with the Gyuto and Gyume Monks in New York in 1985-86
and with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in California in 1989.

These early collaborations helped pave the way for the world-wide
renaissance of interest in so-called "throat-singing" and Tibetan chant. More recently, Hykes's interest in the Tibetan traditions came full circle
with the invitation of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's for Hykes to compose music for his feature film "Travellers and Magicians."

In addition to numerous grants and awards, such as a recent $50,000 Fellowship he received from the Flying Elephants Foundation,
David helps sustain the Harmonic Presence Foundation programs through his film music,
for films including "Travellers and Magicians"by revered incarnate Tibetan lama Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche,
"The New World," "Ghost" and "Dead Poets Society" and even "X-men: The Last Stand".

The David Hykes/Harmonic Choir concert in Paris at the Cité de la Musique,
in the series "Ecstase et Trance" (with Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Tony Conrad and many others),
included both a concert of Harmonic Chant and a Harmonic Meeting, an experiential session of Harmonic Presence work.
You can download the evening's program here.
< br>

The best-known dimension of our work, Harmonic Chant (harmonic singing),
reflects thirty years of study and practice of wisdom and healing traditions,
including Tibetan Buddhism, the Gurdjieff Work and Advaita Vedanta;
twenty-five years years of retreats and workshops with thousands of students and friends all over the world;
and thirty years of sacred music-making with The Harmonic Choir and many other musical collaborators and artists.

David Hykes has collaborated with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Gyuto and Gyume Monks,
and religious and spiritual groups from a broad range of traditions.

For work "demonstrating singular creativity, passion, integrity and leadership, and inspiring reverence for the natural world,"
The Harmonic Presence Foundation was awarded a significant Fellowship from the Flying Elephants Foundation,
whose work is supported by the *"Ashes and Snow" exhibition of photographer Gregory Colbert. <

Hykes was the first musician to integrate the throat-singing of Mongolia and Tuva
with the Just Intonation movement of contemporary western music into a comprehensive musical system, which,
together with guided studies of meditation, sacred chant, mantra and sound yoga,
have allowed the vision of Harmonic Chant as a universal sacred music to gradually unfold.

Hykes' career began in New York in 1974 as an experimental filmmaker and composer at age 20
with the screening of his film "Moving Parts" in the Whitney Museum's New American Filmmakers series.
He founded The Harmonic Choir, the West's oldest and pre-eminent vocal overtone ensemble,
in 1975, and performed the first-ever Harmonic Chant music on film,
offered to the Gurdjieff Work for Peter Brook's film "Meetings with Remarkable Men,"
thanks to his root guru, Lord John Pentland of the Gurdjieff Foundation,
who oversaw David's exposure to enlightened Tibetan, Mongolian, Sufi and Christian teachers.
David was also was mentored by violinist and yogi Lord Yehudi Menuhin,
Indian raga singer Sheila Dhar, and his godmother from the Taos Pueblo,
who said, "we gave you the privilege to sing."

"David Hykes is an inspired musician whose ground-breaking and enlightening spiritual harmonies
are ecstatic to behold and yet also contemplative, woven of the divine light and pure energy
that dreams, prayers, and all beings, are made of.
It deserves the kind of listening, reflection and contemplation
which Tibetan masters call 'the Three Forms of Prajna (Wisdom),comprising a genuine Higher Education.
Listening to his remarkable music helps me stop and meditate, hear silent echoes of emptiness,
and feel closer to that Luminous Void from which all sounds arise." --LAMA SURYA DAS



Hykes was also inspired by the Western harmonic traditions,
from medieval chant to Just Intonation pioneers Hermann von Helmholtz,
Alain Danielou, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Tony Conrad,
whom along with Steve Reich, Hykes reveres as Western inspirations.

It's important to remember, harmonics are universal!
Harmonic sound waves were part of the Big Bang and their echo, the cosmic background radiation,
still resounds, to the tune of some 400 million photonal vibrations per spatial volume the size of your body.

Harmonic Chant is part of a 14-billion year old tradition--the harmonic presence illuminating every nook and cranny of the cosmic space.
Those subtle waves of photonal warmth, the cosmic background radiation, still radiate across the sky in every direction,
in waves as wide as 2 full moons.

And at the other end of the infinite vastness of SCALE,
smaller than the tiniest particles, the first movement, the first vibration, the first stirring in the void
would be the harmonic resonance of the "strings" of String Theory,
their harmonic resonance being "none other" than the identity of the created particle,
of photon or neutron, electron or quark.

The universe arises from a harmonic process; the universe has a musical nature.

Our delightful earthling music is the echo and renewal of that original harmonic realm...

The main "harmonastery" of the Harmonic Presence work is Pommereau,
a 12-century Cistercian site and park in the forest just 90 minutes southwest of Paris, France.
It's a magical and ancient part of France, 20 minutes north of the Loire River, near castles and forests, lakes and fields.




For any and all information write Harmonic Presence/France or call +33 (0)9 52 56 74 69 or +1 203 987 5416.

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To hear David's many interviews on WNYC-fm in New York over the years with John Schaefer, you can go to the WNYC-fm archives.

David is often a guest as well on the WFMU-fm show hosted by Irene Trudel.