DJ Passionfruit at Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden
At long last, we return to the historic Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden for a limited series of intimate monthly concerts focused on collective breath, meditation, and unity. This is music as medicine, collective ritual, and an invocation for the worlds to come.
We begin with our dear friend Surya Botofasina who is visiting us from Brooklyn this week to sit in on the Saul Williams Meets Carlos Niño & Friends residency at Blue Note. Pulling up with a deep array of synthesizers, we’re simply so grateful to receive his loving music, share this presence, and highly encourage your attendance.
Surya was raised on the Sai Anantam Ashram founded by Swamini Turiyasangitananda (known to many as Alice Coltrane). The Ashram was a sanctuary of music, spirituality, acceptance, and under Turiya’s mentorship, Surya’s musical, personal and spiritual growth within the Ashram has remained a central reference point in his life and music.
We’ve given this micro-series the name ‘The Paradise Garden of Endless Melodies’ as a play on two references. First, as a nod to the late IASOS and his Vibrational Environments series which included an album called The Paradise Bird of Endless Melodies comprised of synth and birdsong. Second, as a love letter to the history of Paradise Gardens, and their adjacent role in both Japanese and Persian culture as sites for utopic world building.
Bring a blanket and gather in the garden with us for an evening of bhajan, improvisation, playful motifs, and the rekindling of something very special. We’ll have tea available for you upon arrival & offer the gentle reminder that there are no animals allowed at the Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden aside from our critter friends who nest, rest, and digest throughout the koi ponds and tree canopies.
We may still be setting up and tinkering with sounds at 5p, so pls feel free to lay and wander and enjoy the garden. Surya will begin around 5:30p or when the moment calls.
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Raised on the Sai Anantam Ashram, Surya Botofasina was mentored from an early age by the legendary harpist, pianist and spiritual leader Turiyasangitananda.
His musical, personal and spiritual growth within the Ashram remains the central reference point in his life. ‘The very core of my being resides and has been cultivated at the sacred grounds of Sai Anantam Ashram,’ he says today. ‘Each value, aspect, place, memory, person, quality, feeling, bhajan, Satsang, energetic representation collectively composes this person.’ As his most recent album’s title indicates, he was and is an ‘Ashram Sun’, and the strong feminine presence of Swamini Turiyasangitananda and his mother Radha infuses how he hears and offers music.
Surya has collaborated with friends and luminaries like Georgia Anne Muldrow, André 3000, Carlos Niño, Nate Mercereau, Shabaka, Saul Williams, Marshall Allen, and Angel Bat Dawid. His work as the Music Director of the Sai Anantam Ashram Singers has seen him tour internationally to honor the devotional music of Swamini Turiyasangitananda.
The Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden was created by landscape designer & craftsman Kinzuchi Fujii between 1935 – 1940 for Charles and Ellamae Storrier Stearns. It is the only intact example of a major Japanese-style garden created before World War II for a residence in Southern California.
The teahouse which we gather alongside is named Niko-an, meaning Abode at Two Ponds. The original teahouse was built in Japan to Kinzuchi Fujii’s exacting specifications, then disassembled and shipped to Los Angeles for reassembly in the garden. The twelve tatami mats covering the floor signified a teahouse of great importance.
Kinzuchi Fujii’s son possessed his father’s original plans and many photographs taken during the garden’s first construction. These were an invaluable resource during the garden’s recent restoration.
Though the original teahouse burned down in 1981, it has been rebuilt. Dr. Takeo Uesugi, an accomplished landscape architect and designer, worked closely with the current owners, Jim and Connie Haddad, to restore the teahouse, faithfully adhering to Kinzuchi’s original drawings, photographs and architectural plans.
We’re very grateful to Jim, Connie, Virginia, and Heidi for welcoming Living Earth to the breathtaking Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden.