Kevin James Carroll

Kevin James Carroll is an Australian singer, chant leader and shakuhachi player who grew up in Lorne on the Victorian coast. Travels through Asia, and a first trip to India in 1990, brought him into contact with Tibetan Buddhism, Dzogchen, yoga and devotional chanting, and he then spent around ten years living simply in far north Queensland to deepen that practice. After a short spell fronting a festival band in Byron Bay he turned instead to small community chanting gatherings, which over seven years of weekly meetings led to his first album, ONE, in 2010. Since then he has lived mostly on the road.

His Heartsong chanting circles mix Sanskrit and other sacred mantras, call-and-response kirtan and English songs that carry ideas from Eastern philosophy, often closing with the shakuhachi. He presents this as bhakti yoga open to people of any faith or none. With his wife Susana Rodríguez on harmonium he leads circles, sound journeys and festival workshops across Europe and Australia, retreats in places such as Bali and Corfu, and a week-long course for people who want to lead chanting themselves. He also teaches a morning practice of toning through the chakras that he calls Active Aum Meditation. His Insight Timer library holds flute meditations and mantra recordings.