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The hardest part of watching the group Tejase perform at Yoga Haven on the Scarsdale/Eastchester border was trying to fulfill the wishes of the band by not clapping at the end of each song, audience members said.
"We want the music to be a meditative experience, where the sounds of the music resonate," guitarist Arthur Rotfeld said. "Sound is healing and the silence is soothing, that is the experience we want to share."
The group performed a Kirtan Sunday afternoon, which Rotfeld described as a participatory musical experience that is an integral part of yoga practice.
Rotfeld takes simple yoga texts and sets them to his own original music. The newly formed band includes vocalist Ann Casapini, bass player Jamie Harris, Steve Mansfield on drums and Denise Madden on vocals and harmonium.
"The music bonds ourselves to our own hearts more deeply," said Madden, who is also a popular yoga teacher at Yoga Haven. "Our name means illumination, the inner light, inner glow,"
Participants at the event were welcome to sing along or close their eyes, lean back and let the music soak in.
The musical event was the first held at Scarsdale location of Yoga Haven, which opened at the beginning of this year. Yoga Haven in Tuckahoe has been a village mainstay for 15 years burgeoning into a business that includes 55 classes, 30 teachers and more than 2,000 students each month.
Yoga Haven owner and Scarsdale resident Betsy Kase said that the Tuckahoe branch literally outgrew its location.
"We wanted to make a new space and we also wanted to offer more specialty classes," Kase said when the new studio opened. "We'll have classes for kids, for seniors, like chair yoga and women's centered classesbreast cancer yoga, pre-natal yoga, menopause yogaalong with our regular classes."
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