David Hykes

David Hykes is a composer, singer, teacher of contemplative music and meditation, visual artist, and conference presenter. Born in Taos, New Mexico, in 1953, he grew up in the Pacific Northwest, then attended Antioch College and Columbia University (MFA Arts). He founded the Harmonic Presence Foundation in New York on Sept. 11, 1981, to explore resonant relationships between mind, music, and the medicine of healing harmonization, and to share the Harmonic Presence practices and teachings through retreats, seminars, and conferences. He has served as a Contemplative Faculty member of Mind and Life Europe and the Mind and Life Institute, co-founded by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the late Francesco Varela, who explore the benefits of meditation and mindfulness practices in modern life in conjunction with neuroscientists, psychologists, and contemplative practitioners.

In 1975, he began developing Harmonic Chant, an approach to a primordial “music of the spheres” based on the harmonic series, the DNA of all music as found throughout the universe at least since the Big Bang (the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB). He and his first group, The Harmonic Choir, were artists-in-residence for ten years at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City. He was the first Westerner to meet and collaborate with overtone musician-practitioners from Tibet, Tuva, and Mongolia. He has offered concerts in sacred art and music festivals worldwide, including concerts for H.H. the Dalai Lama, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Rangjung Yeshe Institute, and with the Gyuto and Gyume Monks. He is a noted “sacred cinema” composer (Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s “Travellers and Magicians,” Peter Brook’s “Meetings with Remarkable Men,” Ron Fricke’s ”Baraka,” two films by Terrence Malick, among others).

His visual artwork is focused on the ongoing Harmonic Visions series, with which he creates evocative visual mandalas and imagery with his voice, using special software, translating vocal harmonics into corresponding visual wave patterns. Hykes’s work has received awards from UNESCO, the National Endowment for the Arts (USA), the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Edwards Art Fund, the Threshold Foundation, and the Flying Elephants Foundation, among others. He has released 12 albums, several with his pioneering group The Harmonic Choir, including “Hearing Solar Winds,” one of the best-selling “overtone” albums of all time, and “Harmonic Mantra”. He maintains Pommereau, a contemplative retreat center in France. Hykes offers concerts, seminars, and master classes online and leads contemplative music and meditation retreats internationally. For more information: harmonicworld@gmail.com