O.C. MUSIC REVIEW : Sri Chinmoy Blends Music and Meditation

It’s difficult to criticize the efforts of the India-born aesthete Sri Chinmoy (pronounced SHREE chin-MOY). Although he spreads himself thin, considering all of his activities, Chinmoy’s predominant role as peace advocate deserves some admiration.

Thursday night, the 58-year-old self-described author, musician, artist, meditation teacher and athlete performed his strange blend of music and meditation in the Bren Events Center at UC Irvine. Titled “Peace-Invocation Music,” the two-hour free program brought a crowd of New Age enthusiasts along with several groups of native Indians.

Also scattered throughout the audience were scores of Chinmoy’s mostly Caucasian disciples.

They weren’t difficult to spot, since the men were dressed in white with dark green neckties, while the women appeared in colorful ankle-length gowns. Throughout the evening, many held their hands in a praying position just below their chins, deep in a trance of sorts. A revolving table next to the guru--the sole person on stage--provided him an assortment of instruments of both Western and Indian origin, which he played one by one, each for about five minutes.

Occasionally, he would meditate after putting down an instrument, sitting completely still after rolling his eyes back into his head.

Chinmoy’s musicianship certainly isn’t virtuosic--amateurish at best. His childlike improvisations noodle without a measured tempo as he plucks, bows or fingers, using a simple diatonic scale. When he sings, usually a traditional Indian song or an original song in the same vein, his voice is jittery and his pitch sags while he accompanies himself on a small keyboard.

His goal seems to be supplanting a lack of vitality with a therapeutic calm, representing a state of mind beyond bliss. The result does not bore but does annoy at times, when a lack of substance suggests a certain charlatanism.

At one point, a Thai holy man by the name of Phra Kru Winaithorn Virasak Kittiwaro joined Chinmoy onstage in a meditative position. A disciple explained that the Thai sage and Chinmoy share a mission to bring peace to the world. At other times a small choir of disciples gathered in front of the stage singing in unison.

Chinmoy closed the evening at an eight-foot Steinway grand piano.

Being played mostly with his palms instead of his fingers, the dabbling collection of tone clusters aptly could have been called “Kitten on the Keys,” but that title already has been taken.