April 2009 Music Reviews
Siyotanka
From its soul-stirring Native flute opening to its closing chords, Siyotanka is a moving experience, a masterpiece of sweetness, peace and tranquility. It's a walk on the plains, with water flowing and the somehow comforting sound of thunder. Masterful flute, drums and gentle percussion with a little chanting delicately intertwined leave you feeling embraced by the world of nature, the world of the Lakota people.
This is Michael Brant DeMaria's third follow-up CD to his popular Healing Sound series. The album reached #1 on the NAR international charts in February, and has received international airtime in Europe, Asia, and Australia. It was also the soundtrack to the world premiere of the play he co-wrote with Stephen C. Lott, Siyotanka: The Legend of the Flute , winner of seven Crystal Awards, including best original score.
Michael is a psychologist, composer, musician, poet, author, speaker, professor, and founder and director of a consulting company specializing in helping individuals and groups live more creative, meaningful and satisfying lives. A multi-instrumentalist, he began using music for his own healing from trauma at the age of seven. A diplomat in expressive therapy, he integrates nature and creativity (poetry, music, play and art) in his work in dynamic and engaging ways. He has presented workshops, guided wilderness retreats, performed his popular keynote concerts nationally and internationally, and played with and for the best in the field.
Ten percent of profits from the Siyotanka CDs go to benefit Lakota charities—Michael's giveback to his people, many of whom live in abject poverty on reservations in South Dakota.
Experience the world of Siyotanka; move into the Great Mystery, the very heart of life. This is an album to treasure for years to come.
—Chiwah
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Try It On Everything!
New DVD Illuminates the Healing Power of EFT!
A startling discovery known as EFT is featured in a new DVD entitled Try It On Everything: The Revolution Starts Within (Try It Productions/ March 1, 2009, $34.95). In the film, ten participants join EFT practitioners for a retreat that changes their lives forever. From healing grief, chronic back pain, insomnia, addictions and phobias their profound, personal transformations offer evidence of EFT's effectiveness as a revolutionary healing modality.
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) or “Tapping” is rapidly gaining worldwide recognition as a healing modality that offers tangible results. The healing concepts that it's based upon have been in practice in Eastern medicine for over 5,000 years. Like acupuncture and acupressure, EFT utilizes ancient Chinese meridian points to relieve emotional distress and physiological pain. It's a powerful, self-administered technique where you stimulate meridian points by tapping on them with your fingertips'—literally tapping into your body's own energy and healing power—combined with verbal statements that acknowledge and address the issue.
In the DVD, leading wellness experts, physicians and best-selling authors including Dr. Norm Shealy, Cheryl Richardson, Jack Canfield, Bruce Lipton, Ph.D, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Bob Proctor, Joe Vitale and Dr. Patricia Carrington tout the benefits of EFT and testify to its astounding ability to transform myriad psychological and physical ailments.
“When I found EFT, I was startled by the results, I knew I had to find a way to get this information into the mainstream. In the film, we don't just talk to experts about what EFT can do, we show how it alters the lives of 10 participants and their results are astounding,” states the film's producer and EFT practitioner Nicolas Ortner.
Psychologists, healers and physicians are now using EFT to provide relief from chronic pain, emotional problems, disorders, addictions, phobias, post traumatic stress disorder, and physical diseases.
To see how the basic EFT sequence works go to the website at www.tryitoneverything.com, where you can also purchase the DVD. To hear free interviews with EFT experts, visit www.eft-revealed.com .
The Best of Benedetti & Svoboda
If you enjoy incredible classical guitar and you've been around San Diego long, you have most likely had the opportunity to experience Fred Benedetti and George Svoboda and their stirring blend of original, classical and ethnic music from the far reaches of the globe. With over twenty years' experience delighting audiences together, they work rare magic with pieces ranging from soft and peaceful melancholia to cascades of electrifying flamenco rasgueados .
Fingers flying over the strings as their hands tap out the rhythm, their music takes you on poignant journeys into realms of mystery, romance and passion. The Best of Benedetti and Svoboda —an elegant and moving expression of the musical greatness that has made the duo local superstars—presents original compositions and their own unique arrangements of classical Flamenco and other ethnic favorites. I also recommend their earlier Cds: Echoes of Spain (2002); Maestrale (2001); Spanish Gardens (1999); Flamenco Dreams (1998); Zephyr (1996); and Scirocco (1995).
In 1996, Benedetti and Svoboda performed in San Diego's Old Globe production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing , writing, arranging and performing the music for this successful play. Internationally recognized as performers, composers and arrangers, they maintain full teaching schedules at schools, colleges and universities all over San Diego County and perform regularly both here and in Mexico. Together and individually they have traveled the world, regaling audiences all over Eastern and Western Europe and elsewhere.
If you haven't heard them, you owe it to yourself to catch an upcoming concert. In North County, they often play (singly or together) at the Pannikin in Del Mar and at the Roxy in Encinitas. Fred regularly performs music from the '60s to the present day with his daughters, Regina and Julia, at Four Seasons Aviara in Carlsbad.
This month, Benedetti and Svoboda can be heard at the Grossmont College Fine Arts Hall (8pm April 17th). Fred makes appearances at Cardiff Public Library on April 1st (6:30pm), at The Grand Del Mar (with Regina and Julia) on April 11th and 18th (7pm) , and at solo at West Hills High School in Santee on April 25th (7:30pm). George performs, probably solo although possibly with Fred, at the Roxy on April 24th (8pm).
We are most fortunate to have such musical virtuosos in our midst. Engaging, soulful human beings, Fred Benedetti and George Svoboda are local treasures whose musical gifts you will want to savor again and again.
—Chiwah
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