Silvia Nakkach

Silvia has cultivated a voice that transports listeners into the heart of devotion. She is a pioneer in the field of sound and transformation of consciousness, an award-winning composer, psychologist, recording artist, and an internationally recognized singer and voice-culturist. She holds Masters Degrees in Psychology, Music Therapy, and Music Composition, and she has studied raga singing and classical Indian music with Ali Akbar Khan. An internationally accredited specialist in cross-cultural music therapy training, Nakkach has pioneered the integration of ancient sacred sound with contemporary practices of chanting and music psychotherapy.

She has been involved in clinical research in the areas of micro-tonal singing and creative uses of the voice to induce meditative states. Throughout 30 years of sustained commitment to the field of music and healing, Nakkach has created an innovative repertoire of vocal therapeutic techniques that have become landmarks in the field of music therapy, sound healing, and voice coaching. She has produced a selected music repertoire widely used in Palliative Care, Hospices and Health Centers.

Nakkach is internationally renowned for her seminars, lectures, and performances devoted to the relationship between music, shamanism and spirituality. Her work has been integrated in a comprehensive curriculum of scientific vocal and sound healing applications known as The Yoga of the Voice, a training that offers national certification. She is on the faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies and has created a new certificated program on Sound, Voice and Music Healing. This program is the only curriculum of this kind offered by a major academic institution and taught by cutting-edge leaders in the field of sound and music healing.

In addition to her clinical practice, Silvia teaches at various universities around the world as a visiting professor, and is the founding director of The Vox Mundi Project and School of the Voice, an international organization devoted to the preservation of sacred musical traditions combining music, service and spiritual practice, with school sites in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Tempe, Arizona, and New York. Her interest in indigenous music cosmology and spirituality has led her to work with renowned mystics and master teachers of Indian and South American shamanic traditions.

As a singer and composer, her musical roots embrace a rich variety of cultures that span the globe and the centuries. Her major work, the opera Amazonia Insight, has been performed in many countries. She has released seven CD albums. Ah, The Healing Voice is widely played in health care centers to create a healing atmosphere before and after surgical interventions. She is a contributing author to various books, including Music and the Human Process, Music in Human Adaptation, The Transpersonal Consciousness, and Music Therapy at the End of Life.

"Chanting is a significant and mysterious practice. It is the highest nectar, a tonic that fully nourishes our inner being. Chanting opens the heart and makes loves flow within us. It releases such intoxicating inner bliss and enthusiastic splendor, that simply through the nectar it generates, we can enter the abode of the Self." - Swami Muktananda


Who is Singing? The Role of Sound in Consciousness and Spiritual Awakening
Engage in a journey into the healing power of sound during this experiential workshop as Silvia introduces the Yoga of the Voice, her internationally renowned healing program, informed by the shamanic traditions that use sound formulas, rhythms, and "spirit songs" to induce altered states of trance as well as Yogic traditions that use mantras and sacred syllables to bring about deep states of absorption and release. Using a sacred-based "software of sounds" - drones, specific frequencies and scales, subtle movements, and invocatory chants - sound practitioners learn ways to impact and "charge" specific areas of the brain and the body, in order to bring about immediate transformation of energy patterns and emotional states, resulting in a liberating sense of openness, clarity, and vitality. Participants explore the Nada, Shabda, and Bhakti traditions of sonorous healing yogas, and other Eastern and Western musical traditions including the Sufi practice of sama (spiritual hearing), Afro-Brazilian healing chants, and the Indian ragas that are ancient melodies inspired in the yearning of the heart to unite with the divine.

By remembering the devotional nature of music and sounding we open our hearts to the deep longing of "the enchanters," those who journey through the magic of sound to attract the spirit power.

Goals:
Experience the healing power of sound and the voice; l earn how and what kinds of sound and vocal practices can transform energy, consciousness, and emotional states, through a sacred-based "software of sounds" musical intervals, specific frequencies and scales, subtle movements, and invocatory chants - sound practitioners learn ways to impact and "charge" specific areas of the brain and the body, in order to bring about immediate transformation of energy patterns, consciousness, and emotional states.

Learning Objectives:
• Realize the connection between the somatic, the emotional, and the spiritual dimensions of sound and the voice, and learn ways to incorporate sound-chant and movement into their daily life, identifying vocal practices that can be used as a tool to clear and release blockages in the energy fields and as a complement of any healing and spiritual practice, and

• Through deep listening and singing, experience the contemplative and expressive quality of sound and chanting, and the connection between breath, voice, and mind states, learning ways to structure and pace sound and music to support healing and the connection between mind-body-spirit, and

• A ccess the power of particular frequencies, healing sounds, seed syllables, and shamanic sound-formulas for stimulation and relaxation, through a precise repertory of cross-cultural vocal practices, realizing the therapeutic value of chanting in order to increase vitality, health, inner resonance, creative imagination, and a sense of harmony in community.

Saturday, November 11, 2006
Ballroom 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm


Song of the Spirit: Embracing the Shamanic, the Mystical, and the Scientific Dimensions of Sound
Integrating sound science with the wisdom of sacred and aboriginal sound practices, we will explore the uses of voice, music, and intention to assist psycho-spiritual insight and healing. Like the shaman, the yogi, and the mystic, who have always used sound as a gateway to transcendence and the exploration of consciousness, the sound practitioner today must navigate the realms of the personal, the visible, and the invisible to find metaphors for healing that honor the entire spectrum of human experience. Drawing from an unbroken tradition of Indian, Tibetan, and Afro-Brazilian devotional chanting, Silvia offers innovative forms of vocal improvisation, indigenous chants, and divine utterances to connect us with traditions of enchantment and enlightenment, and provides an effective cross-cultural model for working with sound and music in contemporary therapies with an integral and renewed spiritual emphasis.

Goals:
To emphasize the importance of comprehensive and cross-culturally valid approaches in the field of sound and music healing. Identify the differences and similarities, and integrate insights from the ways of knowing and working with sound of the scientist, the mystic, the alchemist, the shaman, the artist, and the therapist.

Learning Objectives:
• Learn how scientific based systems of sound practices and sacred dimensions of chant relate and complete one another, each capable of expressing and affecting distinct emotional, physical, and consciousness states,

• Experience how vocal sounds are primary sources of energy, stimulating the brain and the heart more efficiently than any other form of sound, and

• Share a cross-cultural repertory of chants and realize how group chanting encourages kindness and respect for other cultures, traditions, and life.

Participants will have a direct experience of the sacred in sound, a dimension of consciousness characterized by a healing release of boundless radiance, openness and love.

Monday, November 13, 2006
Ballroom 9:00am to 10:15am

www.voxmundiproject.com