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November 3, 2009:
Thanks for stopping by, and thanks to everyone for your support!
The second CD from HARC: Blessed by Light is slowly picking up steam. HARC is Hernandez Ana & Ruth Cunningham, and there are some beautiful and fun tunes to help you get through the day. Listen to a couple above.
Blessed by Light can be downloaded from DigStation here:
Download our music at DigStation.com
Buy Blessed by Light (the CD) here: http://cdbaby.com/cd/harc2. This is a great company.
DigStation and CDBaby pay the artists far more than any other vendor, so if you'd like to be REALLY supportive, please use them, and not Amazon or iTunes! Of course, if it's just easier for you to use those other guys, then I'd rather you buy Blessed by Light than not buy it, but you're mostly supporting those companies, not the artists.
Blessed by Light is also available for download at iTunes, CDBaby, and all the major online tune purveyors. Just search for HARC.
Thanks so much for your support! Don't forget my two orphan mp3's: All Through the Night, and Endless Song (the original title of How Can I Keep From Singing); you can download them above. They're not on the new CD (HARC: Blessed by Light). Also, please feel free to put any of my tunes on your own page to help me spread the word. I can use the help!
Here's a video of me leading Open My Heart at St. Paul's Chapel in NYC at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlnE5GMkSsA
Check out the Sounds True CD called Songs for Kuan Yin, featuring two songs from HARC: Inside Chants (the Kuan Yin Mantra and Open My Heart)! It's also got tunes by Deva Premal, Wah!, and a bunch of other fine women. Check it out: http://store.soundstrue.com/mm01267d.html.
Check out www.anahermusic.com to learn a new chant today (they're beautiful and nutritious!), and to check out my book, The Sacred Art of Chant.
Check out my blog at http://anahermusic.blogspot.com
The Eternal Spirit CD is also available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/anahelena. It's very meditative and filled with ocean. Do not operate heavy machinery while listening to it!
You can hear a couple of my tunes on YouTube, thanks to Cynthia (the mad creator) Black and her beautiful photography.
Open My Heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lei6rR_pcSc
Covenant Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olJNnDmnGZo
Enjoy them.
Here's a stab at a bio: I was born and managed to grow up like a lot of other people. I found my way through a lot of ups, downs, and had a few too many encounters with crazy drugs (and crazier people) along the way. Music has been a constant spring in my life, and kept me alive when I had doubts about the usefulness of that option. I've sung in a lot of choirs, conducted by famous people and not-so-famous people, all of whom taught me something about how to treat people (and how NOT to treat people). Highlights of the famous include singing with Lenny Bernstein the last time he conducted the Mahler 2nd; Zubin Mehta doing Beethoven's 9th at a UN concert for peace; and Kurt Masur doing Britten's War Requiem at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. All very great gigs. Not-so-famous gigs included almost every other gig I've ever had; some great, and some I wish I'd never agreed to do in the first place (I know you know about those - What the hell were we thinking?!). Somehow I've managed to grow as a musician, and find a way to stay fairly grounded in a world that seems hellbent on I'm not sure what. I've recorded six CD's and written one book: The Sacred Art of Chant: Preparing to Practice.
For the last 20 years, I've had a love affair with chant. There's no reasonable explanation for why a Puerto Rican New Yorker who started out as a trumpet player and percussionist and found her voice as a folk singer should gravitate to chant, but there you have it. Blame God (I do).
These days, I help other people find their voice and use sound as a way to get and stay integrated, by teaching a lot of 1-3 day workshops and retreats. I like to teach tunes that will stick with you, so that when your world is in disarray or an unholy mess, you'll find yourself with a good tune to accompany your grief, anger or joy; and not find yourself singing the theme song from (fill in your most annoying song virus here).
So, it's not so important that you listen to my stuff, except insofar as it helps you to find your way to your own stuff, or moves you toward being the compassionate, peaceful human you were created to be (without having to fall into as many potholes as I've fallen into along the way). Life is beautiful, but shorter than you think. Show love now. Enjoy your day. - Ana
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