“The pure voices of Ruth and Ana, woven in a musical tapestry of simple melodies and spirited flowing harmonies, are so stunning that the listener’s heart cannot escape feelings of peace and deep healing.”
                        — Pat Moffitt Cook-Director of the Open Ear Center (www.openearcenter.com)

HARC: Inside Chants includes settings of sacred chants from the Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Jewish traditions. In many of the pieces traditional and newly composed chants serve as ground for improvised counterpoint. Accompanied by piano, medieval harp, tongue drum, flute, and guitar, HARC: Inside Chants is a meditative experience crafted to move the heart to its innate state of openness, compassion and peace.

Click here to hear selections from HARC

You may purchase Harc: Inside Chants from:

CD Baby
or
The Episcopal Book/Resource Center
212-716-6118

HARC is Ruth Cunningham and Ana Hernández. Ana and Ruth have been collaborating performers and sound healers since 2001. They have just completed their first recording: HARC: Inside Chants. Their music makes use of texts from Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, and Jewish sources and combines them with musical traditions as far-flung as the joyous repetition of Indian Kirtan, the simple harmony of Irish folk songs and the pure sound of medieval chant. In addition to newly composed and traditional tunes, they enjoy creating improvised counterpoint. They have facilitated experiences of healing sound and chant at conferences, workshops, and concerts, and are often called upon to create innovative liturgies. They have done workshops and liturgies for the American Guild of Organists and for the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont among other organizations. The work of HARC comes out of their individual practice and experience with chanting and sacred sound, and their desire to share with others the potential of sound and music to transform lives.

Click here to read more about the “Sound As Prayer” workshops with HARC

Ana Hernández is a composer and arranger of sacred music, singer, and multi-instrumentalist. She leads workshops on the uses of sacred sound and rhythm in prayer. Her greatest joys lie in helping people to experience sound; the ways it touches our hearts, and its uses in manifesting peace, compassion, and laughter. She has recorded her arrangements with the National Cathedral Girls Choir and The Miserable Offenders. A previous recording, Eternal Spirit, with Sr. Helena Marie, CHS, has been popular with healing practitioners and spiritual directors. She has also contributed the music track to the popular beliefnet.com meditation ‘The Lord is My Shepherd,’ a meditation on Psalm 23 that can be experienced online at www.beliefnet.com. A few of her chants and hymns have just been published in the new hymnal Voices Found. She is currently at work on a book about chant as a spiritual discipline entitled The Sacred Art of Chant: Preparing to Practice (Skylight Paths, Fall 2004).

 


Photo by Jill Krementz

“The arrangements for the chants presents each one true to its essence (I don’t know this, I just feel it), and in a way, they all strike me as musical mandalas - the circularity of the chant brings forth an energy in the improvisation that creates a world of its own. I listened to it every day for a month and every day I heard something new in it. It really is a fantastic disc.”
— Peter Sykes (www.petersykes.com)