Telluride Yoga Center: Peter Sterios & live music

06 Jun Telluride Yoga Center: Peter Sterios & live music

When yoga teacher and presenter Peter Sterios comes to town to teach a three-day workshop at the Telluride Yoga Center, Gravity and Grace: The Power of Surrender & Intuitive Response, he is not alone.

Sterios is joined by Dr. Masood Ali Khan and Sheela Bringi, two recognized soloists, who have collaborated at numerous yoga events: concerts, kirtan and workshops for some of the top national yoga instructors including Shiva Rea, Alyson Cook, and Peter Sterios.

Dr. Masood Ali Khan, Ph.D., has been a student and practitioner of various yoga aspects for 20 years, as well as an instructor of  the school of Human and Universal Energy Spiritual Academy. Masood was head of the teaching faculty for Human and Universal Energy at the Open University for Complementary Medicines in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has studied acupuncture and Reiki.

As a musician, Masood is a multi-instrumentalist, playing Didgeridoo, guitar, to hand drums and The Hang, a new percussive instrument created in Switzerland in 2001. The Hang (pronounced "Hung") means "hand," in a local Bernese dialect. The instrument looks like a flying saucer and sounds other worldly, with its ethereal resonating overtones in a D harmonic minor scale.

A versatile performer with roots in Indian classical and jazz music, Sheela Bringi sings and plays the harp, and the classical Indian bansuri flute. As a performer and improviser, Sheela's work has been shaped by  the study of the bansuri under Maestro G.S. Sachdev and her work with diverse artists including Meredith Monk, Cecil Taylor, Aashish Khan, and Swapan Chaudhuri

Sheela is currently working on her third album with her band PremaSoul and Southern jazz trumpeter Clinton Patterson, music described by the media as a “colorful mosaic of intriguing, rhythmic meditations," “music for the future with “universal appeal."

Why music with the class? It is widely known throughout the Yoga world that using sound in combination with asana intensifies the practice, focuses attention, deepens exhalation, increases circulation to vital organs and balances emotions.

Nuff said.