ABOUT VOICE YOGA
What is Voice Yoga?
Indian classical music provides the sonic context of Voice Yoga. Music in India is intrinsically linked to spirituality. Songs are not just songs; they are colours, moods, entire worlds! Most importantly they are a direct channel to the divine - what ever that may mean to you. Each individual's spiritual path is an intimate and sacred idea for which there is no need of external validation or justification.
Traditional Indian music comes in the form of 'Ragas' and these ragas provide countless different paths on which the voice can dance along. Singing is steeped in a sense of connecting with the divine, with universal consciousness: all who have gone before us and all who will follow us. Practising Voice Yoga fully charges you with cosmic energy by helping you deeply integrate the vital energy or 'Prana' that is the source of life for all. Voice Yoga shows us how to breathe in this pranic energy as life giving air and release it back into the world as beautiful life enhancing music.
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Sessions begin with meditation and end with song. They include exercises that: explore the various places in which you can resonate in your body, teach you about the anatomy of the voice and help you discover your own unique voice. A warm, open and intimate atmosphere is nurtured in which we discuss any issues that may arise as a result of the feeling of letting go that is facilitated through connection to the breath and the singing voice.
THE FOUNDER
Olivia Preye
I have always been a great believer in the healing power of music. I first got into using singing as a therapeutic tool during my Masters in Leadership at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Since graduating in 2011, I have lead workshops all around the world in a wide variety of contexts: from concert halls in Singapore to prisons in Leicester. I work with professional musicians and people with no musical experience whatsoever, with school children and with the elderly including those who live with mental and/or physical disabilities, to help them find their creativity, their self-expression. This in turn has a healing effect.
I first visited India in 2008 to be with my Godmother (who was Sri Anandamayi Ma's biographer) before she died. It was then that I fell in love with Indian classical music. I have studied it very irregularly since then, taking it more seriously since 2018. Voice Yoga is something I have been thinking about since then as I wanted to bring together my expertise as a vocal coach and creative practitioner together with my love for Indian spirituality and the beautiful music this encompasses.
Back in India in 2019, I completed my 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training, which gave me the foundations of Hatha and Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga. I did this to better understand and connect to my body. I was also having some health issues that I wanted to try to resolve naturally. I knew that doing the training would help me to understand the philosophy and anatomy of yoga more deeply. The course gave me all of these things and more and so I became ready to finally launch Voice Yoga!
2019 was also the year that some extremely challenging life events dropped me deeply into experiencing grief in all it's painful beauty which has since compelled me to help facilitate other peoples healing journey using Voice Yoga, just as I did.
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I have now lead Voice Yoga courses all over the U.K including at festivals and retreats, in France and in north and south India. My dream is to take it all around the world - including to Japan, where my husband is from.
