āyātu varadā devyakṣaraṁ brahmasaṁmitam | 

gāyatrīṁ chandasāṁ mātedaṁ brahma juṣasva naḥ | 

ojosi sahosi balamasi bhrājosi 
devānāṁ dhāma nāmāsi 
viśvamasi viśvāyussarvamasi 
sarvāyurabhibhūroṁ

gāyatrīmāvāhayāmi ||

Maha Nārāyaṇā Upaniṣat || 41 || 26 ||

āyātu varadā - MNUp || 41 || 26 ||

The Deceit
As he attempts to consummate their union, Yama is betrayed by Savitri, leaving him heart-broken and incensed. Savitri and Satyavan are reunited, destined to live happily together for 400 years.

A Fire Ritual (Agna Ayahi Vitaye)
With Yamalya in turmoil over Savitri's deceit, Yama invokes the mantra 'Agna Ayahi Vitaye', cleansing the world by ritual fire and restoring divine order.

Moragh Brooksbank, Maryam Best – Vocals
Charlotte Stock, Andrew Jones, Anna Clark – Strings
Silbert Morris, Henry Miller - Djembe, Kumina Drums
Elizabeth Hall - Marimba, Xylophone, Gyil (Ghanaian Xylophone), Djembe, Stick
Christopher Best - Marimba, Glass, Voices, Sequencing, Sampling
Madeleine Bischof - Contrabass Flute
Peter Bernard – Trumpet
Leo Bachmann - Contrabass Tuba
With members of the Dartington College of Arts Balinese Gamelan led by Saj Heming

Recording engineer -  Christopher Best
Image from Twilight Tempest of Love and Death by Indra Thiagarajah

Buy at CD quality

Waking Dance 10 The Deceit; 11 A Fire Ritual (Agna Ayahi Vitaye)

Satyavan is miraculously revived.

Moragh Brooksbank, Maryam Best – Vocals
Charlotte Stock, Andrew Jones, Anna Clark – Strings
Silbert Morris, Henry Miller - Djembe, Kumina Drums
Elizabeth Hall - Marimba, Xylophone, Gyil (Ghanaian Xylophone), Djembe, Stick
Christopher Best - Marimba, Glass, Voices, Sequencing, Sampling
Madeleine Bischof - Contrabass Flute
Peter Bernard – Trumpet
Leo Bachmann - Contrabass Tuba
With members of the Dartington College of Arts Balinese Gamelan led by Saj Heming

Recording engineer -  Christopher Best
Image from Twilight Tempest of Love and Death by Indra Thiagarajah

Waking Dance 09 The Unveiling

Savitri's reverie is broken by preparations for Satyavan's wake. To the pounding rhythms of the Kumina drums, she transforms into 'Queenie', priestess of the Wake Dance. Astride the mortal and immortal worlds, she is able to seduce and entrap Yama, thereby tricking him into a promise that demands the return of Satyavan to the living world.

Moragh Brooksbank, Maryam Best – Vocals
Charlotte Stock, Andrew Jones, Anna Clark – Strings
Silbert Morris, Henry Miller - Djembe, Kumina Drums
Elizabeth Hall - Marimba, Xylophone, Gyil (Ghanaian Xylophone), Djembe, Stick
Christopher Best - Marimba, Glass, Voices, Sequencing, Sampling
Madeleine Bischof - Contrabass Flute
Peter Bernard – Trumpet
Leo Bachmann - Contrabass Tuba
With members of the Dartington College of Arts Balinese Gamelan led by Saj Heming

Recording engineer -  Christopher Best
Image from Twilight Tempest of Love and Death by Indra Thiagarajah

Waking Dance 08 Wake Dances (Kumina, Pacha, Yanvalu)

Savitri swoons over the body, re-living memories of spiritual and sexual ecstasy.

Moragh Brooksbank, Maryam Best – Vocals
Charlotte Stock, Andrew Jones, Anna Clark – Strings
Silbert Morris, Henry Miller - Djembe, Kumina Drums
Elizabeth Hall - Marimba, Xylophone, Gyil (Ghanaian Xylophone), Djembe, Stick
Christopher Best - Marimba, Glass, Voices, Sequencing, Sampling
Madeleine Bischof - Contrabass Flute
Peter Bernard – Trumpet
Leo Bachmann - Contrabass Tuba
With members of the Dartington College of Arts Balinese Gamelan led by Saj Heming

Recording engineer -  Christopher Best
Image from Twilight Tempest of Love and Death by Indra Thiagarajah

Waking Dance 07 Mortal Love

Amidst high ceremony, Satyavan's body is carried to its place of rest.

Moragh Brooksbank, Maryam Best – Vocals
Charlotte Stock, Andrew Jones, Anna Clark – Strings
Silbert Morris, Henry Miller - Djembe, Kumina Drums
Elizabeth Hall - Marimba, Xylophone, Gyil (Ghanaian Xylophone), Djembe, Stick
Christopher Best - Marimba, Glass, Voices, Sequencing, Sampling
Madeleine Bischof - Contrabass Flute
Peter Bernard – Trumpet
Leo Bachmann - Contrabass Tuba
With members of the Dartington College of Arts Balinese Gamelan led by Saj Heming

Recording engineer -  Christopher Best
Image from Twilight Tempest of Love and Death by Indra Thiagarajah

Waking Dance 06 Processional

Yama surveys his domain and watches over the turmoil below. Ever the 'restrainer', keeping mankind in check, he remains unmoved by their pleas and protests.

Moragh Brooksbank, Maryam Best – Vocals
Charlotte Stock, Andrew Jones, Anna Clark – Strings
Silbert Morris, Henry Miller - Djembe, Kumina Drums
Elizabeth Hall - Marimba, Xylophone, Gyil (Ghanaian Xylophone), Djembe, Stick
Christopher Best - Marimba, Glass, Voices, Sequencing, Sampling
Madeleine Bischof - Contrabass Flute
Peter Bernard – Trumpet
Leo Bachmann - Contrabass Tuba
With members of the Dartington College of Arts Balinese Gamelan led by Saj Heming

Recording engineer -  Christopher Best
Image from Twilight Tempest of Love and Death by Indra Thiagarajah

Waking Dance 05 Yama's Kingdom

The mortal world is angeed by and embittered that such perfect love should have been thwarted. Savitri determines to win back Satyavan from Yama's grasp.

Moragh Brooksbank, Maryam Best – Vocals
Charlotte Stock, Andrew Jones, Anna Clark – Strings
Silbert Morris, Henry Miller - Djembe, Kumina Drums
Elizabeth Hall - Marimba, Xylophone, Gyil (Ghanaian Xylophone), Djembe, Stick
Christopher Best - Marimba, Glass, Voices, Sequencing, Sampling
Madeleine Bischof - Contrabass Flute
Peter Bernard – Trumpet
Leo Bachmann - Contrabass Tuba
With members of the Dartington College of Arts Balinese Gamelan led by Saj Heming

Recording engineer -  Christopher Best
Image from Twilight Tempest of Love and Death by Indra Thiagarajah

Waking Dance 04 Last Chorus

The prophesised death of Satyavan.

Moragh Brooksbank, Maryam Best – Vocals
Charlotte Stock, Andrew Jones, Anna Clark – Strings
Silbert Morris, Henry Miller - Djembe, Kumina Drums
Elizabeth Hall - Marimba, Xylophone, Gyil (Ghanaian Xylophone), Djembe, Stick
Christopher Best - Marimba, Glass, Voices, Sequencing, Sampling
Madeleine Bischof - Contrabass Flute
Peter Bernard – Trumpet
Leo Bachmann - Contrabass Tuba
With members of the Dartington College of Arts Balinese Gamelan led by Saj Heming

Recording engineer -  Christopher Best
Image from Twilight Tempest of Love and Death by Indra Thiagarajah

Waking Dance 03 The Veiling

Savitri, a young princess, sings to her husband Satyavan a song of love and happiness. However, Savitri bears a terrible secret, for it has been foretold that Satyavan will die within the year.

Moragh Brooksbank, Maryam Best – Vocals
Charlotte Stock, Andrew Jones, Anna Clark – Strings
Silbert Morris, Henry Miller - Djembe, Kumina Drums
Elizabeth Hall - Marimba, Xylophone, Gyil (Ghanaian Xylophone), Djembe, Stick
Christopher Best - Marimba, Glass, Voices, Sequencing, Sampling
Madeleine Bischof - Contrabass Flute
Peter Bernard – Trumpet
Leo Bachmann - Contrabass Tuba
With members of the Dartington College of Arts Balinese Gamelan led by Saj Heming

Recording engineer -  Christopher Best
Image - Sugar Free Design

Waking Dance 02 Gyile Song

Yamalya is the mythological realm of the spirits of the dead, ruled over by Yama, god of death. The spirits have no physical embodiment and serve partly as messengers, dragging the dead before Yama's throne to receive divine judgement.

Moragh Brooksbank, Maryam Best – Vocals
Charlotte Stock, Andrew Jones, Anna Clark – Strings
Silbert Morris, Henry Miller - Djembe, Kumina Drums
Elizabeth Hall - Marimba, Xylophone, Gyil (Ghanaian Xylophone), Djembe, Stick
Christopher Best - Marimba, Glass, Voices, Sequencing, Sampling
Madeleine Bischof - Contrabass Flute
Peter Bernard – Trumpet
Leo Bachmann - Contrabass Tuba
With members of the Dartington College of Arts Balinese Gamelan led by Saj Heming

Recording engineer -  Christopher Best
Image from Twilight Tempest of Love and Death by Indra Thiagarajah

WakIng Dance 01 Spirits of Yamalya

20 años Practicante, Profesor de yoga y Profesor de Cantos védicos en la tradición de T. Krishnamacharya y TKV Desikachar.
Yoga and Vedic Chants Teacher in the tradition of T. Krishnamacharya and TKV Desikachar since 2010.

Christopher Best is a freelance composer based in the Southwest of England, writing mostly concert, stage and acousmatic music. 

Commissioning groups have included the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, the Fisarchi Ensemble of Florence, Scottish Dance Theatre, Jamaican National Dance, Emilyn Claid & Co., and Bimba Dance Theatre. Works have also been written for ensembles such as Aquarius, Jane's Minstrels, Kokoro, the choir of Selwyn College Cambridge and Onyx Brass.

In making new work, Chris places particular emphasis on collaborating with performers, and is grateful for having had the opportunity to do so with such distinguished musicians as accordionist Miloš Milivojević, trumpeter Alan Thomas, cellist Rohan de Saram, flautist William Sleath, pianists Tim Carey, Raymond Clarke and Julian Hellaby, harpist Ruth Wall, guitarist Matthew Marshall and organists Simon Hogan and Daniel Moult. 

His music has received widespread critical acclaim and been performed and broadcast internationally. Since 2010 Chris has held a senior lectureship at Falmouth University, having formerly been Reader in music composition at Dartington College of Arts in Devon. He has taught extensively throughout the UK and abroad, and co-directed residential music and dance exchanges in Devon, Manchester, London and Madrid.

Recent output includes the acousmatic cycle Worlds; Hawaiki; Six Conceptions for chorus and orchestra, Clarion Song for trumpet and organ; Odes and Episodes and Echoes of a Lost Music, both for electric guitar; They Fall, They Dance for flute and string quartet; Scending for flutes and accordion and Fragilities for flutes and cello.

For further information, scores, parts and recordings visit composer’s website:
https://chrisbestmusic.com

New tracks tagged #savitri