Interview with Sharon Gannon
by Joel Davis of White Swan Records regarding Sharanam.

1. Q: What is your inspiration behind the album, Sharanam?
SHARON: Nature: Living in a wild forest sanctuary, a refuge (sharanam) in Woodstock, NY in the midst of oak, white pine, cedar and hemlock trees as well as black bears, deer, foxes, opossums, coyotes, raccoons, porcupines, turkeys, hummingbirds, black birds, blue birds, woodpeckers, nuthatches, morning doves, gold finches, flowers and many elemental beings: fairies and devas, gives me the opportunity to listen to and live with the whispers and songs essential to life.  

2. Q: What is the album about? 
SHARON: Are you asking me to describe the music? Well, I really can’t say and I hope I really won’t be able to describewhat the music onthis album means. As Alan Watts has been known to say, “Only bad music has meaning.” I hope this music isn’t “bad music”. The truth is—music doesn’t mean anything other than itself. When one tries to describe music it is like trying to describe yoga, it isn’t possible because music defies words. It is feeling. And to feel you must be able to shut up and listen and that is also what you must do with yoga.
But I’ll go ahead anyway and try in my clumsy way to describe what the album is about: This album is about taking refuge and the yearning to find a way to do that. Yearning to be reunited with the beloved—one’s true heart’s desire. To be reunited is to fall into the embrace of love where you know yourself to be totally accepted for who you are. You fall into love. The music is about yearning for this type of love, which is the ultimate refuge. Sharanam means to take refuge. In order to find refuge we must first kindle the desire for it. We must have a yearning to connect and in order to have a yearning to connect we must first be separated but in order to be separated we must first have been connected. So our true most essential primal experience is oneness. This oneness is what is realized in the state of yoga.  The soul’s yearning to reconnect, to take refuge, in the ever-renewing source of joy, which in Sanskrit is referred as the pranava, which is described in the yogic scriptures, as the syllable OM. Music is the ground of being of the whole universe, reality is sound. We are attracted to music because essentially we are music...it is our being. This is why music is often said to be the universal language.  The aimor goal of yoga practice is to intuitively hear this deepest music, which connects one with all of life. A yogi is someone who strives to live harmoniously with all of life, wants to know themselves as one with all that is. In order to do that a yogi first must learn to tune their instrument. The basic instrument is one’s own body/mind. Once tuned the yogi can then joyfully play as a confident member of the celestial orchestra of life.

3. Q: What are the potential benefits of listening to the album? 
SHARON: becoming more in touch… feeling safe, calm, confident, secure, closer to yoga….closer to feeling connected with nature and the divine…with all that is, including your own true self…. becoming more in touch with the earth, the wind, the sky the trees and animals…your more expansive natural self which ultimately is not different than the Divine. 
 
4. Q: Why is chanting/mantra important?
SHARON: Mantras can act like medicine to make one whole again by dissolving inner conflicts and divisions. The Sanskrit word mantra means: to cross over the mind. Man=mind + tra=to cross over. Mind refers to the ability to divide or separate unity into parts, to objectify absolute reality. To speak language is to describe something. Mantras are magical formulas designed to free up consciousness from the tyranny of thought. Through reciting or even hearing mantra one can stop the thinking mind and rest in the stillness of feeling which is a place without boundaries, where one’s sense of self expands to include others and possibly the whole of reality.
Vocalizing a mantra externally or internally can trigger the realization of the omniscient presence of the mantra. Sacred ancient mantras permeate the external and internal atmosphere. They go on with or without the chanter. Mantras are the subtle forms of the divine presence—the building blocks or blue-prints of the universe. Mantras are the essential tools of the magician as well as the yogi. Yoga is a magical practice, which causes a shift of one’s perception of reality (or of self and other) towards a more whole or holy perception where differences and divisions dissolve into unity.
  
5. Q: How does this music relate to yoga practice?
SHARON: This music is intended to assist the listener in purifying their emotions and uplift their minds, creating a profound ease in the body. Listening to this music will prepare one to delve within, moving into subtle and expanding realms of joy.

6. Q: What is your greatest intention as a musician?
SHARON: Of course most musicians would say, that their intention is  “to inspire,” and yes I would also like to inspire, but I have to ask myself, what does that actually mean? Perhaps the translation of the mantra Lokah Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu describes my intention: To contribute in some way to the happiness and freedom of all beings through creating a mood by means of sound, which might invoke a place of expansive awareness within the listener where the possibility of total acceptance, kindness and love arises, and is felt as totally possible. Or in other words the listener would set aside their violent, angry, destructive thoughts, words and actions and move into a place of self confidence where they felt no need to harm another being in any way. They would be in the state of satya-graha, which means to be possessed by truth…a place of ahimsa where love, kindness and compassion prevails. Being in this state would make one irresistible. I think deep down most everyone longs to be irresistible. But we can become side-tracked and search in the wrong places which often times leads to disappointment. To long to become irresistible to God is what interests me. Music can be a means to that. God is music: Nada Brahman. Originally music was a method to communicate to the divine, but as humanity became more disconnected with nature and spirit the art of music became a mundane means to gratify the senses, a commercial venture or at worst a means to enhance the ego.  But with the resurgence of “spiritual music” many people are awakening to the sacred power of music as a means to enlightenment. 

7. Q: Can you speak a little about your collaboration with Ferenz Kallos?
SHARON: Ferenz pushed me to explore my voice in ways that no other musical collaboration had ever provided me. As a producer he was a hard taskmaster and would insist I could hit the high notes.  When I felt too tired to try, his faith, persistence and patience encouraged me to discover musical places in my own voice that seemed hidden to me before. As a singer I felt comfortable and inspired with him.  I wanted to make an album, which featured Sanskrit mantras but I also didn’t want to use Indian instruments or raga structure.  Because of Ferenz’s extensive training in western classical music he brought to our collaboration a rich foundation to create the sublime sound I was listening for.
Ferenz is a very talented multi-instrumentalist, who can easily span musical genres, which is evident in our music. Particularly listen to his lead guitar parts in the song Govinda Fly and the rock-opera drums on the Hare Krishna track. 
Even though my mother was an opera singer, she never gave me singing lessons. I did study voice with the director of the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company in Bellevue Washington while I lived in Seattle, but Audio Letter didn’t provide me with the space to develop my vocal range. On my own, over the years, I have trained my voice by listening to Theramin music and singing along, attempting to duplicate the sounds.  So on this album I wanted a chance to feature my beloved Theramin, the musical instrument originally invented by Leon Theramin, the father of electronic music. David Life plays it beautifully on this album and Ferenz was able to tastefully weave its etheric waves of sound around my voice.