"In Snatam's voice...there is purity, clarity, and love."
- Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now
BIOGRAPHY
Snatam Kaur is a world-renowned, Grammy-nominated devotional singer, touring musician, teacher, and author known for her stirring, luminous vocal quality and insightful teaching. On February 23, 2024, Snatam will release “Walkin’ Into the Light,” the first of two singles leading to Heartflow, a new album on April 12, 2024.
Inspiring and light-filled, Heartflow radiates the profound and deeply personal space Snatam tunes into with mantra meditation and through celebration and dance. Together, this selection of mantras and songs from Snatam’s personal experiences, practices, and teachings convey the brilliance of coming from a Heartflow space in life.
The album’s debut coincides with the launch of Snatam’s Heartflow Tour through Europe and will be followed by a fall tour of North America and Latin America. Beginning with quieting the mind and tuning in, Heartflow concerts will feature chants and songs Snatam has found empower her entry into this Heartflow space — a place where her soul most deeply resonates — and share it with others who choose to activate the energy of the heart and live from this vibrant, beautiful place of awareness.
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Read MorePerforming with Snatam on the Heartflow album and tour are her band members, producer Ram Dass (piano, clarinet, and vocals), Grecco Buratto (guitar and vocals), and Sukhmani Rayat (percussion and vocals). Born in Trinidad, Colorado, Snatam was raised in the Sikh and Kundalini yoga tradition in a household and community rich with traditional Sikh music and chanting. Her mother, Prabhu Nam Kaur, is a Gurbani Kirtan singer, and growing up, Snatam learned how chanting, singing, and practicing Kundalini Yoga could be a deep source of strength. By the time she was in high school, she had adopted the practices—especially chanting—something she considered a huge blessing. Snatam lived her formative years in Sacramento and the Bay Area, often traveling with her family to India where she studied with Sikh musicians. She currently resides in New Hampshire with her husband, Sopurkh Singh, and their daughter, Jap Preet Kaur, who recently sang with Snatam and her grandmother, Prabhu Nam Kaur, on Soul Bird, a transcendent devotional album featuring the three generations performing together. Snatam's professional music career began in the late '90s, performing at an all-night Kirtan festival in Lake Wales, Florida, with a band called The Peace Family, with who she recorded her first album in 1999. After initially performing and recording in English, she felt drawn to traditional Sikh chanting and music and recorded Prem, her first solo album, in 2001. Not long into touring, Snatam was inspired to teach. She had met people along the way who, having a powerful feel-good experience, wanted more. Snatam felt that if she could teach them to chant and develop a spiritual practice, they could continue on their own. She began teaching workshops along with her concerts, which culminated in the 2016 release of her book Original Light. The book's goal was to help people create meaningful daily spiritual practices modeled on the Aquarian Sadhana, the spiritual practice Snatam grew up with, including recitation, yoga, and chanting. Explore classes with Snatam, her husband Sopurkh, and other teachers at Kirtan and Kundalini, their online sacred music and yoga school, dedicated to supporting the spiritual journey of as many practitioners as possible.
PRESS
LA Yoga
Music and Mantra as Medicine – The Healing Joy of Snatam Kaur’s New Songs and U.S. Tour Dates
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'Making Space' with Hoda Kotb
Oprah tells Hoda she has three friends; here's what it's like to be one of them (and mentions Snatam Kaur)
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VIDEO GALLERY
PHOTO GALLERY
THE BAND
Amar Sachdev
sound engineer/manager
Born in Jodhpur, India, and raised in the heart of San Francisco’s world music scene in Fairfax, California, Amar is a world music DJ, Sound Engineer, Event Producer & Coordinator. He is known for his Electric Vardo shows which brought a multi-cultural experience to San Francisco’s dance clubs featuring music, dance, culinary and visual art from the Middle East, South Asia, the Balkans, Latin America and beyond. He has hosted and collaborated with World Electronica music producers and DJs Cheb i Sabbah, Karsh Kale, Azam Ali, Delhi 2 Dublin, David Starfire, DJ Dragonfly, Beats Antique and many others.
Having grown up in a musical household, Amar spent much of his childhood going to his father’s concerts. During his pre-teen years, he took an interest in the technical aspects of sound. His father, taking notice of Amar’s interest, would ask for his feedback during sound checks. Not long after that, Amar started paying close attention to, and eventually working with the sound engineers and learning from them.
Fast forward to life after going to university and obtaining a degree in International Business & Marketing, and starting up his own business as a gallery/store owner selling art, world music and fair trade crafts where he began to host intimate in-store concerts, Amar went to working full time as a DJ and sound engineer. His love for music and ear for sound nuances made this an easy choice, and a successful one.
With a focus on Classical Indian music and Devotional Chant music, Amar has run sound for many world renown musicians including Ali Akbar Khan, G.S. Sachdev, Zakir Hussain, Swapan Chaudhuri, Krishna Das, Jai Uttal and Snatam Kaur. As an event producer, he has worked with the SF International World Music Festival hosting Sachdev and Zakir at Grace Cathedral, co-produced many events including the Tribal Caravan dance festival in LA, and large-scale club events in the Bay Area.
Amar has been working with Snatam Kaur as her sound engineer since 2017, and has now taken on the role of Tour Manager.
Grecco Buratto
guitar/vocals
Grecco Buratto is a Brazilian-born artist by nature, musician and record producer by trade, and a yogi by destiny. He began playing guitar at the age of 8 and relocated to Los Angeles to attend the Musicians Institute in 1995.
Since graduating, he has toured, performed and recorded with a long list of artists including k.d. lang, Shakira, Gwen Stefani, Enrique Iglesias, Mandy Moore, Leehom Wang, JJ Lin, Earth Wind & Fire, Sergio Mendes, BTS, Luis Fonsi, P!nk, Boyz II Men and Backstreet Boys.
Recent projects included a Live CD/DVD recording with Brazilian icon Roberto Carlos at Abbey Road Studios, k.d. lang’s Ingenue 25th Anniversary Tour, recording on the Latin Grammy Award Winner for Best Contemporary Tropical album Brazil305 by Gloria Estefan, select dates with American singer-songwriter LP and musical icon Lionel Ritchie.
Grecco has written music for the television shows Dawson’s Creek, Jack and Bobby, Everwood, and Brothers and Sisters, and has had a song placed in the feature film Last Vegas (co-written with Lucy Woodward and Grammy Award-winning songwriter Itaal Shur), and has recorded with film composers Gustavo Santaolalla, James Newton Howard, and Blake Neely for major motion picture soundtracks including Miami Vice, RV, First Daughter and Woman on Top.
Grecco speaks five languages and is a certified Kundalini Yoga instructor. He has taught internationally and at Yoga West L.A, where he began his journey in 2008 after experiencing an awakening of consciousness while on tour in the islands of Cape Verde. Under the guidance of Guru Singh, he became an avid student and practitioner of the technology, applying years of disciplined music training to his personal practice.
Ram Dass Khalsa
multi-instrumentalist/vocals
Ram Dass Khalsa (known professionally as Ram Dass) creates heart-opening and emotionally restorative music. As a producer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter, he instills a unique potency through collaboration and improvisation to create art greater than the sum of its parts.
Ram Dass is at the forefront of a movement of musicians who aim to bring healing and solace to the world. He has created a series of musical projects born from his own deeply personal human experience of joy and sorrow. Collaborating with the duo AWARÉ, he recorded And Now He Has Wings, a cinematic musical journey through his process of healing after the death of his newborn son. His subsequent EP, The Unimaginable, explores the same themes, instead telling the story as a singer-songwriter. In 2021, Ram Dass produced the score for the film AWAKEN, directed by Bob Degus, starring Gabrielle Anwar (Scent of a Woman) and Henry Ian Cusick (Lost, The 100, Scandal).
His constant dedication to render the beauty of life’s triumphs, tragedies, and beyond has led him to the world stage. He played at the 2019 GRAMMY Awards, Carnegie Hall, and performs frequently throughout the world, touring extensively with GRAMMY-nominee Snatam Kaur and other artists. When not on the road, he enjoys a full schedule in the recording studio supporting other musicians in their creative processes.
Born into a family of professional musicians, Ram Dass was raised to appreciate all musical genres and discover the unique nuances of every song and composition he heard. He developed a near-encyclopedic knowledge of wide swaths of the musical landscape, which he calls upon to create novel and moving approaches to music production and songwriting.
Official Website:
Sukhmani Rayat
percussion/vocals
Sukhmani Rayat has distinguished herself as one of the only young female tabla players to emerge from the British Indian classical music scene. Sukhmani has been training under the careful guidance of Shri Bhupinder Chaggar, himself a disciple of the legendary late Pandit Sharda Sahai, master of the Banaras Gharana. While specialized in tabla, Sukhmani is a talented multi-instrument percussionist, something she credits to growing up in a Punjabi immigrant family in Leeds, UK, where she was surrounded by sounds of the city’s thriving and diverse music scene.
Sukhmani has performed and recorded extensively around the world where “she brings deep beauty, passion, and artistry to her playing.” Notably, she has toured and performed with artists such as Snatam Kaur, Ajeet, Jai-Jagdeesh and many more. Sukhmani is also a committed teacher of tabla to a host of students around the world—something that she holds in equal importance to her work as a performer.
In her recent transition to singing and songwriting, Sukhmani brings her rare understanding of rhythm and percussion to her own music, delivering sultry vocals over deep, driving beats. Her debut EP, Here, connects with and empowers listeners to be fully and unapologetically themselves.