Happy Birthday BKS Iyengar! Community Kirtan with Francesca & Friends

Join Francesca and Friends for a community kirtan to celebration and honor the life and legacy of BKS Iyengar.

This community kirtan will bring us together for a holiday gathering with chanting and chai in celebration of the 100th anniversary of BKS Iyengar’s birthday!

We will gather at 7pm for a short opening and story telling with Anneke Faas followed by soulful kirtan and sacred chanting led by Francesca Nicosia.

This is a family event – feel free to bring your children.  You are welcome to bring a small offering (fruit or sweets) for the altar.

Francesca Nicosia: harmonium, lead vocals

Doug Chermak: drums, percussion

Kenny Shea-Dinkin: guitar, response vocals

Swetha Rao: vocals

Suggested donation $10-20 cash at the door.

Proceeds will support the cost of putting on the event as well as a donation to the studio’s Yoga Blessing Fund that offers full and partial scholarships to make classes and workshops accessible to students who are experiencing financial hardship.

About your musical leaders

Francesca Nicosia has been chanting and leading kirtan for over a decade. She grew up in a musical family — her mother an opera singer and father an organist — and started playing piano and singing in choirs at a young age. She was first exposed to the sacred music of India during a semester abroad in Northern India. While living at Shoshoni Yoga Retreat in Colorado, chanting became an integral part of her daily practice. She was blessed to play with members of the ashram’s acclaimed kirtan band, Shiva’s Garden and study classical Indian singing with Megan Yalkut. Francesca regularly led kirtan at the Eldorado Mountain Yoga Ashram and the Denver Ashram before moving to the Bay Area in 2010. Francesca is an active member of the Adeline Community. She teaches Yoga for Every Body on Monday nights and is a graduate of the Sadhana Studies program. Chanting is her musical prayer and offering on the path of devotion, or Bhakti Yoga. She is grateful to share her deep love for this devotional practice as a way to open the heart, still the mind and take refuge in our innermost experience of the Divine.

Douglas Chermak has practiced Iyengar yoga since 2001 and is a graduate of the inaugural Adeline Yoga Sadhana Studies program. He has studied Middle Eastern and Indian percussion since 2006 with teachers including Aharon Wheels Bolsta and Faisal Zedan. Doug’s day job is as a plaintiff’s side environmental attorney with the Oakland-based firm Lozeau Drury LLP, where his practices emphasizes the protection of water quality.