About David Hykes

David Hykes is a visionary composer, singer, musician, recording artist, visual artist and teacher of contemplative music and meditation. He is founder of a contemplative music called Harmonic Chant and of the Harmonic Presence work, which blends music, meditation training and healing harmonization practices. A pioneer in new music, contemplative chant and healing sounds, he founded Harmonic Chant in New York in 1975, the year he also founded his legendary group, The Harmonic Choir, considered to be one of the world’s pre-eminent overtone ensembles. His 12 albums to date, including“Hearing Solar Winds,” one of the best-selling overtone albums of all time, are unique and subtle explorations of Harmonic Chant, Mantra, Sufi poetry and poetic texts, with instrumental accompaniment ranging from wind harp and Sufi nêy flute to tabla and zarb percussion, and even the gigantic bell in Boudhanath, Nepal. 

He was Artist-in-Residence for ten years at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York before moving to France, where he has been based since 1987. He has lead Harmonic Presence retreats since 1980 all over the world. His work relating music, meditation, mind and healing has led to presenting at the Dalai Lama’s Mind and Life Institute, and to receiving awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, UNESCO, the Edwards Foundation Arts Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others, for his development of a global contemplative music of our time. His “sacred cinema” film music includes pieces for “Baraka,” and “The Tree of Life,” and many other films, and he was invited by revered incarnate lama Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche to contribute music to his feature film “Travellers and Magicians.” As a visual artist and filmmaker, he now explores the “Harmonic Visions,” transforming chanted sound into light and imagery, showing the unity of sound vibration and visual form.

Since 1981 he guides the Harmonic Presence Foundation.  In addition to his openness and contributions to avant-garde music currents in the USA, he was the first contemporary westerner to study and collaborate with musicians from Tibet, Tuva, and Mongolia, giving concerts in New York and with the Gyuto and Gyume Monks, and over the years, concert-presentations of Harmonic Chant offered to the Dharma in Nepal, in events with HH the Dalai Lama, and in France, the US and Canada. He was a close student and friend of the late Smt. Sheila Dhar, a wonderful North Indian raga singer and author.

David Hykes is a Dharma student since many years. He took refuge with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, who gave him the name Shenpen Yeshe, “Serving the Primordial Wisdom that brings happiness to beings.” He has studies also with Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Since Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche’s request that David offer music to his film “Travellers and Magicians,” David tries to be present at his teachings whenever and wherever he can. Earlier in life, he completed nearly twenty years of spiritual studies in the Gurdjieff Foundations in New York, San Francisco, and Paris, as a student of two of Gurdjieff’s successors, Lord John Pentland and Dr. Michel de Salzmann. 

He currently divides his time between France, where he directs Pommereau, a music and meditation center near Paris, and the USA, where he teaches, performs and lectures on behalf of the Harmonic Presence Foundation, the first modern organization dedicated to contemplative tradition and the music of harmonic body, mind and heart.