- This event has passed.
The Tashi Lhunpo Monks & Sika: Sounds of the Sacred World
July 21 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
£25.00
Join us for a special evening of Tibetan chants and music with a masked dance and Sika’s timeless soundscapes.
SOUNDS OF THE SACRED WORLD
Ancient sounds to transport you to a different place and time.
Join us at St Thomas’ Church in Salisbury for a special evening featuring music from the Monks of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery and Sika.
Enter the world of earth wisdom and mystery as Sika’s music invokes a primal memory, soaring from lush rainforests to desert caves, from firesides to moonlit skies. Then soar into the Himalayas with the majestic sacred dance and chant of Tibetan monks from Tashi Lhunpo Monastery. This unique collaboration brings together two mysterious worlds in a potent exploration of spiritual power.
Sika’s performances are dynamic and technically masterful, with didgeridoo, double-skinned log drums, native flutes and obscure natural objects; mixed and looped live. Māori ‘singing treasures’ and evocative soundscapes from the Australian and New Zealand bush. The deep sound of these ancient instruments is matched by the thunderous roar of the traditional Dungchen or Long Horns, used to attract the deities to attend the Buddhist monks’ prayer, and the skull drums, bells and cymbals of the Tantric meditative chanting drawing us into a magical world of Tibet.
Also from the Tantric tradition of Tibetan Buddhism comes the majestic masked dance performed to clear the negative forces from the world before the New Year, while Sika’s music rises in a crescendo of hypnotic rhythms that call us all to dance upon the earth.
Sika
Sika is a multi-instrumentalist and pioneer of Sound Journey experiences. He has spent decades listening to the rhythms of nature, exploring sound as a spiritual enquiry and learning from several Native American, Aboriginal Australian and Maori elders. He now lives in the South Island of New Zealand
The Tashi Lhunpo Monks
The five Tibetan Buddhist monks are senior lamas from Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, who have studied for many years the philosophical texts, music and sacred art of Tibet.
Founded in Tibet by the First Dalai Lama in 1447, Tashi Lhunpo Monastery was renowned for its scholarship of Mahayana philosophy and the Tantric tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Following the Chinese invasion of Tibet, twenty elderly monks from Tashi Lhunpo fled religious persecution and undertook a perilous trek across the Himalayas to India, where the Monastery was re-established in exile in the early 1970s. Fifty years on, Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in India is now home to over 400 monks and is once again becoming one of the most important centres of Buddhist learning.
Over the years the Monks have appeared at Glastonbury, WOMAD, The Royal Opera House and been frequent visitors to the Edinburgh Fringe. The Monks have also released a number of critically-acclaimed albums including Dawn Till Dusk (2008), Time of the Skeleton Lords (2010), Wisdom & Insight (2012) and Calm Abiding (2019).
www.tashi-lhunpo.org.uk