Pavaka

Pavaka has played classical and pop music since the age of 4. He has been studying meditation since 1995 and lives in Montreal, Canada. Born in Ste-Anne, Manitoba, Canada, Pavaka's early musical experience was entirely classical. This led him to perform as a cellist in the Winnipeg Youth Orchestra as a teenager. At the age of 15 he picked up bass guitar to fill out the local basement-band line-up.

This led to many gigs into adulthood playing in many different band as a core member, songwriter and as a sideman. Styles covered included, more or less chronologically: metal, grunge, jazz, folk, pop. Some of Pavaka's collaborations at the time include Daniel Roy, Jacques Lussier, Micheline Girardin, Indio Saravanja, Anique Granger, members of Chic Gamine, and The Duhks. Notable awards include winner of La Chicane ?lectrique band contest and Concours Phonogramme awarded by CBC Radio-Canada Winnipeg for the song R?ve. The band Sujet ? la Calembredaine Journalistique Contemporaine (or the band with the long name, as it became known) enjoyed regular local airplay in spite of it's intentionally marketing un-friendly name.

After beginning a meditation practice in 1995, Pavaka largely bowed out of the music business until 2006 when he released Pavaka performs the Melodies of Sri Chinmoy Vol 1. This collection was well received worldwide in the meditation community. The album lead to Pavaka's participation in the Song of the Soul concert series which has offered concerts in New York City, and all over Europe. The 2009 European tour saw musicians performing in Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Russia. Pavaka performed as part of this tour as a duo with vocalist Abhijit Emery. Total attendance for this particular tour was 6000 people.

August 2009 saw the release of The Melodies of Sri Chinmoy Volume 2 which featured many great musicians including (in parenthesis are performers with whom each musician has played) Premik Russell Tubbs (John McLaughlin, Whitney Houston), Sacha Daoud (Chic Gamine, Bia, Cirque du Soleil), Daniel Roy (Daniel ROA, Nathan), don benedictson (Connie Kaldor, Annette Campagne), Shawn Sasyniuk (Roch Voisine, Wilfred Le Bouthillier, Catherine Durand), Alap.

The album was mixed by Juno-award -winning producer and engineer Benoit Morier (Chic Gamine, Genevieve Toupin).