Hindu devotional singing is having a moment
Eru Matsumoto, from left, Wouter Kellerman, and Chandrika Tandon accept the award for best new age, ambient, or chant album for "Triveni" during the 67th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025, in Los Angeles. Credit: AP/Chris Pizzello
(RNS) — The winner of the 2025 Grammy Award for best new age, ambient or chant album — a category once dominated by Enya — was an album titled “Triveni,” meaning “the confluence of three rivers” in Sanskrit, an apt description for its weaving of Vedic chants, melodic flute and cello by India’s Chandrika Tandon, South Africa’s Wouter Kellerman and Japan’s Eru Matsumoto.
The name, which is given to the meeting point of the holy Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati rivers, said singer Tandon, came to her in one of her daily meditations.
“It was a beautiful coincidence that our album called Triveni won the Grammy on Vasant Panchami when the Maha Prayag was going on,” Tandon told RNS, referring to the ongoing Maha Kumbh Mela festival held where the three rivers meet in Prayagraj, India, considered one of the holiest pilgrimage sites in the nation. The world’s largest gathering of humanity, with 400 million people attending this year, the Kumbh Mela happens every 12 years, with this year’s celebration, the Maha Kumbh Mela, happening only every 144 years, when the sun, the moon and Jupiter align.
“Think what you like, say what you like, but one has to just smile at this incredible coincidence,” Tandon said.
___
This content is written and produced by Religion News Service and distributed by The Associated Press. RNS and AP partner on some religion news content. RNS is solely responsible for this story.
