Past Programs
Buddhism - 2008
The Bodhi Sutra
31/10/2008
The Bodhi Sutra is a mesmerising work by a young Australian composer, Nicholas Ng, featuring flutes, bells, drums, gongs and Mahayana Buddhist chant in Chinese and Sanskrit. It was commissioned by the Art Gallery of NSW as a kind of ambient soundtrack to their current exhibition of 6th century Chinese Buddhist sculpture, The Lost Buddhas.
We also hear music for All Souls Day from Faure's Requiem and touch on the pagan roots of Halloween with a Celtic folk song from the Orkney islands. Full of magic and shape-shifting, 'The Great Selkie', is performed by Hector Gilchrist and Liz Thompson.
Shomyo and Shakuhachi: Buddhist Ritual Sounds from Japan
04/07/2008
Sometimes called the Gregorian chant of Japan, shomyo is Buddhist ritual chant that goes back more than 1000 years. The two major schools of shomyo, Shingon and Tendai, were transmitted by Japanese priests from T'ang dynasty China in the 9th century. Beautiful and hypnotic, shomyo is the voice of a 1000 years. We'll also hear the Japanese bamboo flute, the shakuhachi, played by two masters currently in Australia for the World Shakuhachi Festival, Kaoru Kakizakai and Christopher Yohmei Blasdel. And one of Japan's greatest living shakuhachi players, Katsuya Yokoyama, will explain some of the Zen concepts underlying the honkyoku, the sacred music of Zen.
The Himalayan Singing Bowls
02/05/2008
The Singing Bowls are believed to have originated with the Bon Shamans of Tibet many centuries ago. They're renowned for their ethereal sound tones which seem to hover and vibrate with great intensity. And this is because the bowls are made from a combination of at least seven different metals, mainly copper, tin and nickel, which when struck with a mallet or rubbed with a wooden wand set up unusual harmonic overtones. These days the Himalayan Singing Bowls are in demand by New Agers for meditation, but they're also used by sound therapists like my guest tonight Aidan McIntyre.
Aidan is a world authority on the Singing Bowls, a teacher and practitioner, who travels the world performing ceremonies and healing with sonic massage, a technique where he places the bowls along the back of a person lying face-down and then begins to vibrate the bowls. I caught up with Aidan McIntyre when he was in Australia recently giving workshops on the Himalayan Singing Bowls and other healing instruments.
Tibetan Incantations
08/02/2008
Born into a family of Tibetan nomads, Tenzin Choegyal now sings and records the songs of the Tibetan nomadic people, including the music known as 'spiritual incantations', an offering of Buddhist mantras sung in melodic form. With Tibetan New Year, or Losar, taking place this week, Tenzin reveals the religious ideas underpinning his music.
We also hear one of the the first spirituals to be published with music in the United States (December 1861) 'Go Down Moses', sung by Mavis Staples with Lucky Peterson on the B3 organ. And we end with Benedictine nuns at prayer.
Blowing Zen
11/01/2008
Japan in the 16th century was in the grip of civil war. Feudal lords fought each other for the right to rule, and bandits roamed the countryside. Yet out of this turmoil came a Zen sect with a tradition of music as spiritual practice whose influence continues today. They were the Fuke sect, and the monks of this Rinzai lineage became famous as the komuso, the Zen Priests of Nothingness. Drawn from the ranks of masterless samurai, the komuso were renowned for their skill in playing the Japanese bamboo flute, the shakuhachi.
Dress in white robes with short swords, they wore tall basket-shaped hats over their heads to suppress their identity and their ego. The repertoire created by the komuso was known as the honkyoku, 'original pieces'. More than just music of great beauty, these pieces were considered to be part of a spiritual practice, a Zen practice, and the act of playing them came to be called suizen, blowing meditation.
First broadcast 30 March 2007.
