Biography
While filming in Kathmandu, our crew lived at Sechen Monastery. Life at the monastery is a life of pattern. 5AM: a bell tolls. 5:15AM, it tolls again. Again at 5:20AM. 5:21AM. Thirty seconds later. Twenty seconds later. 10 seconds later. Then 5. Now the air is filled with the repetitive sound of mallet striking centuries-old metal. And now you are awake. Welcome to Sechen Monastery.
Here, with a beautiful temple as the backdrop, we filmed and recorded monks playing traditional Tibetan horns and flutes, and chanting ancient melodies whose purpose is to keep the energy of the planet in balance.
How we met:
Everywhere we travel, we found that the best way of explaining what we were hoping to accomplish with Playing for Change, was through music rather than words. This proved true with the monks at Sechen Monastery as well. When we met with the monk responsible for the day to day running of the monastery, he seemed confused at first by our intent. However, once we played “Stand by Me,” he did not have any questions for us, except for “When do we record?”