About the Artist

The songs are artistically and skillfully led and executed by award-winning vocalist and teacher, Graciella Zogbi, former professionally trained opera singer at the world-renowned Cleveland institute of Music, with over ten years additional training of her four octave voice in Vedic voice culture and the Classical Music of Northern Vedic India.

She has studied and trained with numerous top musical artists of India including padma bushan sitarist, Debu Chaudhuri, and vocalists, Pandit Mani Prasad, Anita Roy, and former president of the Lucknow School of Music, Dr. Awasthi. She has also integrated with her musical studies, training, and study of Sanskrit and Vedic recitation with numerous Sanskrit scholars. Although not of indian heritage, she has been repeatedly acclaimed for her perfection in Sanskrit phonetics by Vedic scholars. She has taught classes in Vedic Devotional Song at both the elementary school and university levels.

Tabla artist, Sankari Menon Wegman has a Ph.D. in Vedic Physiology and Ayurveda and enjoys listening to and playing Vedic music.

About Classical Vedic Devotional Songs

The devotional songs on this CD mainly fall into the categories of particular genres of Vedic Classical Devotional Song known as Stotrams and Kirtaans.

Stotrams are scholarly authentic Vedic texts, used in pujas and yagya technologies for thousands of years to avert calamities, purify the body, mind, and environment and maintain balance, health, well-being, and bliss. The Stotrams and Kiraans on this CD are songs characterized by simple, traditional, and sweet melodies, much repetition, and simple and lively rhythms. They are therefore ideal for teaching young students as well as students of all ages. It is said of Vedic Devotional Songs that if they are sung with surrender and devotion in the heart and mind to deep inner silence, then established in that silence, blessings flow to the singers from the cosmic administrator they are representing. These serene ancient songs are sung today in India in much the same manner as they were several thousands of years ago in Vedic times; passed down through the oral tradition of teaching Vedic Knowledge that includes Vedic Music. They enliven the two-fold use of Swara or "frequency." That is, frequencies in terms of the tonality of Vedic Music, as well as in terms of the reverberations of the Veda in the Sanskrit text.

Tatash

Shrimad Bhagavatam 8.8.8

(from the Mahalakshmi Puja)

Tatash chavirabhut sakshat

Shri-Rama Bhagavat-Para

Ranjayanti dishah kantya

Vidyut saudamami yatha

Then there appeared before the eyes,

The consort of Shri Rama, devoted to her lord,

illuminating the four directions with her radiant beauty

in the manner of the Saudamani* lightening.

*Saudamani refers to a mountain range in the Himalyas which dazzles light in all directions when there is lightening.

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To sing along with the CD more perfectly, all Sanskrit texts, English transliterations, and translations to the remaining songs in this CD are available at www.vedicdevataproductions.org.

Acknowledgements

This CD would not have been possible without the specialized assistance, encouragement, and generous support of the following individuals to whom I'm so very grateful: Dr. Susie Dillbeck, Dr. Ravi and Naina Patel, James R. French, Robert Palma, Elinor Wolfe, Gundu Rao, Dr. Thomas Egenes, Peter Freund, Kathleen Brawner, Ken West, Martha Bright, Shepley Hansen, Craig Ridgely, Einar Olson, George Hrebar, Jeffrey Everett, and my dear student Girls' Chorus and their parents.

Funded in part by the Institute for the Development of Enlightened Arts and Sciences (IDEAS), John and Theresa Sorflaten, Thaddeus Computing, Hal and Rita Goldstein, Andy and Betty Bargerstock, Bob and Carol Markowitz, James R. French, and Margaret Rose Werd.

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