CRS invites you to an intimate afternoon of music and meditation with concert pianist, music therapist and Hug Music Founder Kana Kamitsubo Markovic and CRS co-Founder Christopher Pelham. Kana magically weaves our visualizations into her music, improvisationally creating rich tapestries of sounds with emotional depth and breadth to compliment her own haunting compositions. Participants are welcome to lay down, mediate, dance, sing, play music along with Kana’s improvisation. The purpose of this event is for you to connect with yourself and listen to what “it” wants to say.

In Kana’s work, listening and playing, process and performance are one. Exquisitely attuning herself to the conversation between her deepest impulses and our own, she allows her spirit to translate this dance of giving and receiving into music in which we can all recognize ourselves.

The event will take place on Sunday, April 29, 2018 from 1 – 2:30 pm. Tickets are $35 at the door and $30 through 4/28 and are available online, by phone (212-677-8621), and at the door. Participation will be limited to 15.

Kana Kamitsubo is a pianist trained in classical & jazz, a board-certified music therapist, as well as a founder/owner of Hug Music, a music school located in Queens. She began her piano study by the age of three. During her childhood, she spent most of the time playing her piano by improvising and composing. Her favorite thing was to reflect the energy around her (energy of her home, family, people who visited her) on her improvisation and she would improvise endlessly without knowing it was a very special talent she was given. As her piano study became more serious, she stopped playing freely but started to focus on “what others would think is good” by following her piano teachers’ advise. At 19 years old, she felt extremely detached from music and struggled.

Then, she decided to study jazz piano. At 20 years old, she met her piano teacher, Takeshi, who told her, “Listen to the music inside of you first, and strike the keys to play the melody you just heard.” He taught the importance of being authentic in the music and following where the music wants to go instead of thinking what to play. In order to fully understand his words and also master this, Kana started to record herself at every single opportunity (practicing, rehearsal, performances), listening to the recordings, and taking notes on what she was feeling/thinking when she played and how it affected her music. After years of doing this practice, she has concluded that when ego takes over, the music loses its life; when she listens to the spirit and plays music with it, the music spreads love and she is able to connect with others. This has become her philosophy as a musician.

At age 25, she was awarded a Berklee World Scholarship and moved to Boston to further study piano performance and music therapy. There, her approach was validated when, as a music therapy student, she began working with individuals with disabilities. She cultivated her clinical skills based on her philosophy and was recognized by Berklee College of Music for demonstrating extraordinary therapeutic musical skills. As a result, she received numerous awards, and afterward was hired by Berklee to help develop their “Clinical Music Improvisation” curriculum.

As a licensed clinician, she has worked with diverse populations including children with special needs and has developed her own method that has been proven to be effective for children with autism spectrum disorder. While she works as an active music therapist, she also composes and performs with her husband as an acoustic duo unit called Yagull. The past few years, Kana started to study A Course in Miracles (ACIM) with Yasuko Kasaki and Naoko Ono. Kana has discovered that the process of improvising (listening to the music inside of her mind and then striking the keys to play the music she heard) mirrors ACIM’s direction to listen to our inner voice.

CRS Founder Yasuko Kasaki strongly advised Kana to perform for others more actively. Kana further cultivates her spirituality and musicality and realized that creating music with others (by reflecting the energy around her) is a very special ability she has been given. Now Kana knows that she wants to devote her life to sharing it.

http://www.hugmusicny.com

http://www.yagull.com