Jonathan Kay

Jonathan Kay is a director of the Sri Aurobindo Association and a member of SAA’s Web Advisory Board.

Jonathan is a cross-cultural jazz and North Indian classical musician from Toronto, Canada. In search of Eastern spiritual and contemplative ways of musical knowing, Jonathan traveled to India and lived for a decade in Kolkata, learning raga music in the traditional guru-shishya parampara (succession of teachers and disciples in Vedic culture). He also traveled to Japan on multiple occasions studying contemplative traditions. Jonathan is recognized as an innovative composer and multi-instrumentalist, playing saxophones, esraj (Indian 21-stringed bowed instrument), bansuri (Indian bamboo flute), and shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute). Jonathan is also the inventor of the shrutiphone, a non-tempered saxophone designed specifically to play in the Indian tuning system.

Jonathan is currently a first year PhD student in the East-West Psychology Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Under mentorship with Dr. Debashish Banerji, he is deepening his practice and understanding of Integral Yoga and its practice through music. He is also researching contemporary philosophy and psychology to help him better understand and integrate his cross-cultural experiences, as well as develop new types of languages to express transcultural and musical concepts that inform his artistic process. www.jonathankay.ca