ABSTRACT
Ravi Shankar was one of the earliest Indian musicians to teach Indian classical music (ICM) to the audience in America. As is true of almost all Indian communities across North America, New Jersey has its group of ICM schools. Indian doctors or Ayurveda, ICM and Indian musicians in America, are also not often mentioned in academic books about the Indian diaspora except for a passing reference to Zubin Mehta or Shankar. Unlike the Indian immigrants who were mostly interested in ICM for social or art or entertainment reasons, Americans were more interested in Hindu/Indian spirituality intertwined with Indian music. In addition to hundreds of Hindu, Jain, and Sikh temples in North America built and managed by Indian immigrants, several yoga centers incorporate this kind of music in their practices. In her 2016 MA thesis, Patrick Bowe Kyle presents a moving account of her transformation with her practice of Yoga and Kirtan with different teachers.
