Raphaël & Shakya

Raphaël

Raphaël Pinel (was also named Arjuna) is a creative French harp player and composer. As well as the celtic harp, he also likes to play the 6x6 crossed strung chromatic harp, the concertina, exotic flutes, the piano, the trumpet, oriental percussions, the bass guitar, and electronic effects with looper and computer.

He was born in Cherbourg, Normandie in a musicians family, grew up with French, Irish and World music, and played as a teenager with his father on the street. He studied music in Rennes (F), won a prize in improvisation on the celtic harp. He’s been giving concerts and done studio recordings in Canada, Finland and Germany with his own compositions, free improvisation, world music, Latin jazz, Celtic, oriental and meditative music. He performs solo, with looper, in duo/trio with Shakya and percussionists Ojas or Peter Wassenberg and with the jazz trio Trio Melido.

He's been living 2001-2010 in Germany and has a professional recording studio with Shakya in Bonn. He also gives Heart Space workshops to listen to the heart through meditative music and movement together with Deva Chintana.

Since 2006 he goes almost every winter to Tiruvannamalai in South India at the holy mountain Arunachala where he finds inspiration in the silence and the inner beauty. He now lives in La Bastidonne in Provence in the South of France.

Discography

- 1992 guest musician on "Privé d'amour" with the French shanty band of his brothers Marinade
- 1998 Harpyromane, first solo CD with own compositions
- 2003-2009 Résolution - own compositions with a joyful Latin caractère.
- 2007 Pontan - World/Jazz-music with Trio Melido
- 2008 as a guest on the album ARA by Kailash Kokopelli, inner world shamanic music.
- 2009 Trio Melido Live at International Düsseldorfer Orgalfestival, featuring Markus Hinz, church organ.
- 2010 Silent Breeze - Raphaël & Shakya - meditative music from the heart.
- 2011 Source of Joy - meditative music on the celtic harp
www.raphaelpinel.com

Shakya

Shakya grew up in a family of classical musicians. In
kindergarten he initiated his musical path with the
violoncello. As a teenager he took piano classes as well. Until
his twenties he stayed with these instruments within the world
of traditional West European music and formed part of countless
orchestras and chamber music groups.

Throughout an odyssey through studies of mechanical engineering
and business administration and working as a business consultant
he felt somehow like being in the wrong place. A deep longing
for inner freedom kept knocking on his door and found its
expression on a musical level in the exploration of jazz,
latin, pop and rock as a singer and playing guitar. By the end of
his twenties meditation and therapy changed his life. He
endeavored new activities like massage, gardening and giving
workshops for self expression. This change manifested in a new
way of making music. He discovered playing instruments and
singing not only as a way of "having fun" or expressing
feelings, but as a door into an inner space of pure presence,
into the joy of just being, touching and being touched deeply
at the same time and thus experiencing the all-one-ness of life.

Today Shakya lives in a spiritual commune in Bonn near
Cologne (Germany). He offers workshops for voice, dance, touch
and being in Bonn and on festivals. He plays in various groups
like with his friend Raphaël, with Nessi Tausendschön, in the
Osho Uta Band in Cologne, with Luis Molina and others. He has
enriched many CDs with his voice and different instruments. He
accompanies regularly dancing events with improvised music.
Together with Raphaël he produces and records music
in their new professional recording studio. In all his activities he
encourages other people and himself to give way to the
authentic and fresh expression of body and soul which carries
directly home into the heart.