I was born in Brooklyn Heights, New York and when I was 2 1/2 years old I had my first "formal" training with the "muse." I participated in a rhythm and movement class taught by African-American folk singer Charity Bailey. This creative experience with music, in the context of a multi-cultural mix of young children all clappin', skippin', and swayin' to the deep, rolling rhythms and vibrations of the great folk singers voice, left an indelible imprint on my young being. I believe this woman's warmth, the depth of her spirit, the ethnic mix of kids, and the neighborhood I lived in, on the edge of the Jewish and Black neighborhoods of Brooklyn, New York, imprinted the spirit of multi-culturalism in my bones. I have ever since sought, in human relationships , and through music, the harmony of human unity, beyond the categories which separate us by culture, ehtnicity and class.
I spent the first 18 years of my life engrossed in the performing arts of the western world: classical piano, silver flute, modern dance, and drama. At age 16 I graduated from New York City's Lincoln Center High School of Performing Arts . Turbulent times in the "Big Apple" and yet fertile grounds for music and as an underage teen I drank in the jazz and rock greats of a classic era coming to a close. However, the materialism of western life left a gapping hole in my psyche and glimpses of something deeper began emerging through the windows of the music I was listening to: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles....Ravi Shankar! Yearning for the "ultimate truth," I began a spiritual search for something I hadn't found in the western cultural world of my childhood and youth. This search led me swiftly (albeit somewhat dangerously) to the spiritual vistas of ancient India (visa vi California) and at age 19 (not before it was too late) I had the great blessing to hear Ustad Ali Akbar Khan live in concert in Marin County, California where the muse and the fates had landed me.
Upon hearing this music I felt it held the ancient, timeless truths of my heart. I knew it was what I wanted, needed to know, and would take me where I wanted to go, through the doorway to myself! And so I embarked on the life long study of North Indian Classical Music at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California.
While pursuing studies of Indian classical music, I continued simultaneously to study western flute, focusing on the African-American classical, improvisational, spiritual form - better known as JAZZ - and also discovered Sundanese gamelan music at U.C.Santa Cruz. I graduated from there with a B.A. in Aesthetic Studies and Music.
In 1979 I joined together with Phil Fong, Benjy Werthheimer and Matthew Montfort, all students at the Ali Akbar College of Music and we created a truly innovative world music fusion ensemble called Ancient Future.This group was at the forefront of the emerging multi-cultural music revolution and became a vehicle for our exploration into the creation of new music based on our passionate encounters with two great traditions of non-Western music: Indian classical and Indonesian gamelan music, as well as our own Western roots.
Matthew Montfort and I then traveled to Bali where we studied with the inspirational, joyous, and wonderful legendary gamelan leader, I Madé Gerindem of Teges Village. While in Bali we recorded many of the live natural sounds of this exquisite Hindu-Buddhist-Animist tropical island and also much live Balinese music in the field. Some of these Balinese recordings we later used in two different recording projects: Natural Rhythms with Ancient Future, and my own work, Balinese Dream.
I recorded two albums with Ancient Future (Visions of a Peaceful Planet and Natural Rhythms) and then left California to follow a deep calling to completely immerse myself within the cultures whose music had resonated so deeply and truly with my heart. I lived in the Ashram (spiritual community) of a great spiritual teacher in the Himalayas, Sri Haidakhan Babaji, where I also experienced the raw, devotional music of the people, the true roots of the classical music. I also connected with my future teacher of bansuri, the world renown flutist Hari Prasad Chaurasia and spent much time touring around with him, and with Zakir Hussain, the renown tabla maestro with whom I had studied at the Ali Akbar College, and other Indian classical musicians.
In 1986 I recieved a Fulbright Scholarship to study Balinese gamelan music in Bali, and spent one of the most culturally rich and fascinating years of my life, living in the villages and working with my teacher I Madé Gerindem every day. The following year, I received the American Institute for Indian Studies/Smithsonian Fellowship to study Indian classical music in India and took off for 9 months to study with Hari Prasad Chaurasia, a dream come true!
Then, in 1988, I birthed my first child and the deepest music of love came pouring through the Muse! And I learned the song of love divine flows through the ongoing dance of life, from mother to child, from swallow to baby bird, from the Great Spirit to the human being, the rivers of life to the eternal seas of love.
And the music flows on continually changing, growing, sinking down into the roots and valleys and rising up again, forever seeking the spirit of communion, the song eternal of the human heart, the heart of the planet, the expression and ecstasy of the one being, the one SONG ETENAL, the UNIVERSE.
May Music and Peace Be With You Always.
Mindia Devi Klein
