Tag Archives devotional music

Waves of One Sea – A New Global Singalong by Elika Mahony

Interviews, Music 2 Comments

The music of Elika Mahony holds a special place in my heart and in our family life so we were thrilled when she released a new global collaborative song called “Waves of One Sea”. No matter how often we listen to it, it never fails to rejoice my soul.

We’ve featured Elika on Baha’i Blog before — most recently, I interviewed her about her album The Exalted One in honor of the bicentenary of the Birth of the Bab. I was curious to learn more about “Waves of One Sea”, and here’s what Elika graciously shared with me: Continue reading →

WAVES – A New Global Musical Collaboration by Ali Youssefi

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Ali Youssefi creates music that goes straight to the heart. You may be familiar with his collaborative music videos, especially his wonderful song called “Unite”, which includes 50 voices from around the world and which continues to be extremely popular!

Ali was also critical in helping us film Baha’i Blog Studio Sessions in Belgrade, Serbia (where he was living at the time), and from these sessions you can watch him singing “Jedinstvo (Unity)” in Serbian, and “Oh Mi Siervo (O My Servant)” in Spanish.

I was so excited to hear about Ali’s latest global musical collaboration called “Waves”! Featuring over 400 singers and instrumentalists from 38 countries and territories across the globe, “Waves” is a happy celebration of the unified diversity of the human race. Have you watched it? It never fails to make me smile, and I had to get in touch with my dear friend to find out more about his new initiative. Here’s what he shared: Continue reading →

Turn My Steps – An Album by Siria

Interviews, Music 2 Comments

Turn My Steps is the debut album of Siria Rutstein, and many of you may remember hearing her voice on two Baha’i Blog Studio Sessions called “Make Them to Grow” and “Immerse”.

Siria is a thoughtful and joyful singer-songwriter currently based in Edinburgh, Scotland. I have to admit that I have a soft spot for her as when she was a child, her family was in Papua New Guinea with me and my family, and I have so many fond memories of the times I spent with her parents. I was delighted when I heard that she had released her debut album, so I got in touch with her to find out more about her music and why it was important for her to create this album. Here’s what she shared:
Continue reading →

Songs of the Spirit Volume 2 – An Upbeat Album & Songbook for All-Ages by Diana Howlett

Interviews, Music 2 Comments

Diana Howlett’s upbeat and catchy melodies remind me of singalongs from the summer schools of my childhood and sing along is exactly what she hopes you’ll do! Diana is equally passionate about producing songbooks as she is with creating albums and she releases them jointly. Her music thus far has consisted of devotional music based on the Writings (these albums are called Intone O my Servant) and those that are Baha’i-inspired in their content (such as Songs of the Spirit). Songs of the Spirit Volume 2 is her latest work featuring music about holy days, the history of the Baha’i Faith and concepts such as love and unity.

Diana shared with us about how it all came together. Here’s what we chatted about: Continue reading →

Celebration – An Album for the Twin Bicentenary Celebrations of the Births of Baha’u’llah and the Bab

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A spirit of loving collaboration really shines through the music on Celebration, an album in honor of the bicentenary anniversaries of the Births of Baha’u’llah and the Bab, Founders of the Baha’i Faith. Its 16 original tracks beautifully marry multicultural rhythms and sounds with extracts from the Baha’i Writings. The album was put together by a group of friends in Quebec, Canada, and I was able to ask Pierre Tremblay how it all came together. Here’s what he shared with me:  Continue reading →

Daystar – A New Album by Ali Youssefi

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My dear friend, Ali Youssefi has warmed a lot of hearts with his music over the years. One of his most memorable works for me, as I’m sure it is for so many others, is his montage video of 50 voices from around the world singing “Unite”.

Among his many other musical contributions, Ali also played a critical role in helping record our Baha’i Blog Studio Sessions in Belgrade, Serbia (where he was living at the time), and of which he also sang two songs called “Jedinstvo (Unity)” in Serbian, and “Oh Mi Siervo (O My Servant)” in Spanish.

Ali’s soothing voice, his ability to collaborate with others, and his skills as a musician make it exciting when he creates anything new, so I was delighted to hear that he has released an album called Daystar.

I caught up with Ali to find out more about his new album and how it all came together. I hope you enjoy our conversation! Continue reading →

Ascend – An Album by James Mohajer

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One of the things I love about Baha’i Blog Studio Sessions is the discovery of all the wonderful music and talented people around the world! Someone we recently learned about is James Mohajer, and you may recognize him from this Baha’i Blog Studio Session recorded in London, UK called “Apple of Mine Eye” by James & Kyan.

Well, I’m excited to share that James Mohajer has recently released an album of Baha’i-inspired devotions called Ascend, and this nine-track album is full of beautiful meditative music which will make you feel like James is with you singing at your devotional gathering.

I wanted to find out more from James about him and his album, so here’s our conversation:  Continue reading →

Inspired By: An Album by Heart to Heart

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When I heard Heart to Heart’s album, Inspired By, I felt that it was a musical expression of Baha’u’llah’s words “the earth is but one country and mankind its citizen”. Its global and diverse sounds are genuine and a credit to the band’s name. Thankfully the Baha’i community is so interconnected that, with the help of the internet, it was easy to find out more about this musical collaboration. I was able to hear from Alex Christensen about this multi-cultural, rich, and heartfelt album. Here’s what he shared with me:

Baha’i Blog: Could you please tell us who is involved in Heart to Heart?

Heart to Heart is a collective of artists living in the Vancouver area who are learning to create music inspired by their own stories and their involvement in community building efforts. For this album, the artists involved were three brothers: Eric, Alex, and Dan Christensen.

Continue reading →

Top 10 Baha’i Blog YouTube Videos of the Year!

Baha'i Blog, Resources, Videos Leave a comment

Over two years ago we launched Baha’i Blog’s YouTube channel, where we set out to create our very own original Baha’i-inspired video content. Now, about 200 videos later, we have a variety of content to offer, including informative animations like our What are Devotional Gatherings?, our popular music series called Studio Sessions, Baha’i-inspired talks, our short film series on creatives called The Art Of…, and the funny What’s That Word? series aimed at junior youth.

We are excited to be a part of the steadily growing ecosystem of Baha’i-inspired video content online, and we also contribute to this ecosystem by helping and collaborating with others to make specific videos such as the The Last Time I Saw My Father and the short film Switch.

We’ve been trying to reach 10,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel, and we’re almost there, but could really use your help to get us across the line! YouTube has studios located in different parts of the world, and if we have over 10,000 subscribers, we can gain access to them and hopefully use them for some of our future initiatives, so if you can take a few seconds to help us make this happen by clicking here to SUBSCRIBE, we’d really appreciate it! We’d also be very grateful if you could help us spread the word and ask everyone you know who likes Baha’i Blog to help us achieve this goal too!

So now that that’s out of the way (and thank you so much for helping out with that!) let’s get on with counting down our 10 most popular YouTube videos of the year, from Naw-Ruz 2017 to Naw-Ruz 2018, starting with number one: Continue reading →