Wynne Paris

Wynne Paris (born June 22, 1964 in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama) was a new-age and world beat musician/producer with a special focus on yoga music and kirtan, the call-and-response singing of Bhakti yoga. His live performance combines Kirtan chanting, American music (jazz, gospel music, blues and rock music), world beat rhythms and raga scales. He sings in both English and Sanskrit. Paris plays a variety of musical instruments which include the guitar, sarod (a 26 stringed, sitar-like instrument from India), harmonium, saz (a stringed instrument in the lute family) and percussion. Wynne Paris died suddenly of a heart attack on March 22nd, 2021.
Career.
Paris began his career as a musician in the 1980s as a rock & roll and rhythm & blues guitar artist, performing with artists like Rusted Root's Jim Donovan, and Mark Karan of the rock band RatDog. In 1994, Wynne took up Indian music and yoga, changing the direction of his music. In 1996, one of the songs he co-wrote with Maura Moynihan, "Prayer for the Pure Land", won first place in the Songwriters' Association of Washington National Songwriting Contest. Also in that year, he met the Indian "hugging saint" Mata Amritanandamayi, known to her devotees as Ammachi or Amma, which inspired him to move to Marin County to study Indian music, shamanism, and yoga.
Since 1998, Paris has primarily performed and recorded New Age and World Beat music with an Indian influence, performing kirtan chanting and playing both Western and traditional Indian musical instruments. He appeared on the first album of Krishna Das, "Pilgrim Heart" (1998), who is known for popularising kirtan music in the West. This album also featured Sting.
Paris released his debut album, "Ghandarva Café" in 2004, which was followed by "Emptiness and Ecstasy" (2005) and "Omspun", featuring Groovananda, in (2009).
Over the years, Paris has recorded with many notable musicians in these genres including Krishna Das, Badal Roy (Miles Davis), Shahin and Sepehr, Sharon Gannon, Bhagavan Das, David Newman, Wade Morissette, Rick Allen, Guru Ganesha Singh Khalsa, Mark Karan (Bob Weir & RatDog), Perry Robinson, Hans Christian, Dave Stringer, and Girish.
Paris played for a "Yoga Ball" celebrating President Barack Obama's second inauguration at St. Francis Hall in Northeast Washington, D.C. on January 22, 2013.
Groovananda.
Paris is the creative director of Groovananda (which means "the bliss of the groove"), a collective of musicians formed in 2005 the core consisting of Paris, Rick Allen (Def Leppard) and John "JT" Thomas (Bruce Hornsby Band), who play rock-and-jazz-influenced kirtan. On May 14, 2010, he and Groovananda were part of a benefit in Washington, D.C. for the Bonobo Conservation Initiative. They have produced a single, "Tara Om", with Krishna Das, and one CD, "Omspun", released in 2011, both by Auspician Records. Besides the core band members, it featured Badal Roy, Perry Robinson, Mark Karan, Hans Christian, John Wubbenhorst and several others, and vocalists including Krishna Das and Dave Stringer.
Lovelight Yoga & Arts Festival.
For the first time in 2016, Lovelight Yoga & Arts Festival brought together multiple communities for a celebration of yoga, kirtan, flow arts, meditation, learning, and healing.
Woodstock Music & Art Fair producer Michael Lang, musician Wynne Paris, and Kimberley Maddox co-produced the event, which brought dozens of musicians and accomplished yoga instructors from across the country to share their practice and knowledge with attendees of all ages.
The festival was held at Camp Ramblewood, located in proximity to Darlington, Maryland.
A second installment of this annual event was scheduled to take place on August 18–21, 2017.