Kirtan Conversation with Ben Leinbach

Grammy Nominated Producer and Kirtan Musician

We are excited to officially announce Kirtan Conversations: a FREE live stream interview series hosted by Mike Cohen, Founder of Kirtan Leader Institute. This series features key figures from the Kirtan world, including those who have toured nationally and internationally, produced popular Kirtan albums, and become true masters of their craft. Each livestream event will offer exciting dialogue between Mike and his guest, plus dedicated space for a Q&A session so you can chime in with questions and gain fun and useful insights! These conversations will be offered FREE so every chant fan far and wide can benefit.

About Our Guest, BEN LEINBACH:

I grew up listening to popular music and playing rock and roll. After college I continued pursuing a career as a rock and jazz drummer, then took an internship at a recording studio in Oakland called Spark Productions.  This was a great moment for me. Little did I know at the time what the combination of broad knowledge in music theory, composition, and arranging,  performing skills on various instruments, AND learning the art of recording, mixing, and mastering would do for my career. That combination of strengths starts to resemble the skill set of something called a "producer". My boss at Spark Productions, Tony Mills, helped me get just barely trained on how to operate the insane amount of electronic gadgetry in the studio and then proceeded to throw me into hundreds of gansta rap recording sessions. At the time the studio was recording mostly hip hop, R & B, and gospel, but also a lot of jazz, latin jazz. world music, and the occasional rock project. This was fantastic. Everyday there was something to learn, musically and technically. After a few years of pushing buttons and turning knobs, I started producing singer-songwriters and delving into creating backing tracks for some rap and r & b artists.

One day Jai Uttal came into Spark Productions to record his album "Beggars and Saints". That was another turning point in my musical journey. Through the long hours spent recording this album Jai and I established a smooth working rapport and became close friends. I've gone on to record every one of his albums since then, including his Grammy-nominated album Mondo Rama. We also started co-writing music together, and have released four collaborations of world music. Through Jai I met his former percussionist Geoffrey Gordon (R.I.P.), and through Geoffrey I met yoga rock star Shiva Rea. These relationships started to steer my path into the yoga music realm, which included Kirtan, a form of call and response ecstatic singing and prayer. Within this genre I've gone on to record and produce projects with Deva Premal and Miten, Snatam Kaur, Donna De Lory, Jaya Lakshmi, David Newman, Mike Cohen, Brenda McMorrow, Katie Wise, Rob and Melissa, and many others.
 
I currently work out of my home studio in San Anselmo, CA, just north of San Francisco. Mostly I produce, record, and mix projects for artists in a variety of genres. I get called upon to just mix projects, master projects, add additional instrumentation to recordings-in-progress, edit and arrange tracks, help finish writing and arranging an artist's songs, or to co-write songs from scratch. I'll help a project out in any way I can, really. Whatever serves the music.  I can jump in anywhere along the process of writing, arranging, recording, producing, adding instrumentation, editing, mixing, and mastering and helping a recording along. I also compose tracks for libraries that supply music to TV and film, and have recorded and performed on several commercial spots for TV and radio. My co-creations with Jai Uttal have appeared in several films.