The villages of the Svaneti province are located in north-western Georgia, in the valleys that lie between the mountains of the Caucasus. The Svans represent about 1% of the Georgian population. Their language differs from the Georgian language, and their religion is a syncretism of Orthodox Christian faith and pre-Christian beliefs. The polyphony of the Svans appears as one of the major styles of the Georgian vocal art. It consists of two soloist...

""I often felt my ancestors at ease with my practice of Zen. I felt they had led me through other traditions to this practice of ritual and ceremony. I had participated in rituals and ceremonies of African and Native American traditions but was not trained completely in those traditions. I had not been fused into priesthood with my Orisha (spirit) over my head in the African tradition. While I was a drum and song leader in the Native American Sundance...

""The only art I'll ever study is stuff that I can steal from." --David Bowie // Three years before David Bowie died, he shared a list of 100 books that changed his life. His choices span fiction and nonfiction, literary and irreverent, and include timeless classics alongside eyebrow-raising obscurities. // In 100 short essays, music journalist John O'Connell studies each book on Bowie's list and contextualizes it in the artist's life and work. How...

"Before becoming one of the greatest violinists of all time, Itzhak Perlman was simply a boy who loved music. Raised by a poor immigrant family in a tiny Tel Aviv apartment, baby Itzhak was transformed by the sounds from his family's kitchen radio--graceful classical symphonies, lively klezmer tunes, and soulful cantorial chants. The rich melodies and vibrant rhythms spoke to him like magic, filling his mind with vivid rainbows of color. After begging...

Wall is a cinematic meditation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which the filmmaker blurs the lines of hatred by asserting her double identity as Jew and Arab. In an original documentary approach, the film follows the separation fence that is destroying one of the most historically significant landscapes in the world, while imprisoning one people and enclosing the other. On the building site of this mad wall, daily utterances and holy chants,...

First, four powerful guided meditations, combined with "singing bowls", keyboards, flute, percussion, soprano sax, and Vedic chanting, are the same meditations that have benefited thousands of Dr. Gaynor's patients over the last 15 years. Then, uplifting melodies performed on keyboards, harmonium and thumb piano are blended with world percussion, Sanskrit chants and the healing sounds of Tibetan metal and crystal singing bowls.

In the war against the Islamic State, the only movement combating the jihadists with any effectiveness on the ground is the Kurdish resistance army. This movement is made up of both men and women fighters forcing back the jihadists and reclaiming the land village by village.. One of the resistance commanders is Viyan, a 25 year old Syrian-Kurdish woman. She is operating on the eastern front of Kobanê in Syria, where mixed-sex units fight under her...