Edo Kahn A Sound Life Dome Interview

Inspirational Charity, A Sound Life, Opens Unique Music, Yoga and Meditation Venue to Help Improve Everyday Wellbeing

Australian charity, A Sound Life, has launched Sydney's most inspiring music and wellness venue, where every event held helps deliver free yoga, music and meditation to people in need. Located in the Entertainment Quarter, A Sound Life Dome provides a wellbeing and creative destination for private and corporate events, alongside an invigorating programme of meditation, music and yoga classes for all.

Founded by musician and yoga teacher, Edo Kahn and his late wife Jo Mall-Kahn in 2014, A Sound Life empowers vulnerable communities to improve their health, wellbeing and happiness with the healing powers of yoga, music and meditation. The 250- capacity event space will not only showcase first-hand the positive effects of these proven modalities, but help provide free services to people facing hardship in hospitals, aged-care, women's refuges, mental health and disability facilities.

Kahn explains, "Everyday wellbeing is a human right, yet millions of people can't access it. The Dome is designed to transform lives, empower individuals and unite communities – not only by providing a space for people who work long hours and in a fast-pace society to feel calm and rejuvenated, but ultimately by helping to deliver thousands of magical moments to people who need them most".

Donated by experience agency, George P Johnson, the 18 metre multi-function geodesic structure has been created to maximise energy flow, with rose quartz crystal buried at the centre to ground the space and offer compassion, peace and healing.

A Sound Life Dome offers an inspiring programme of workshops and sessions available to the public, hosted by world-renowned teachers like Forrest Yoga, Shiva Rea and Duncan Peak, and musicians Ben Lee, Lisa Mitchell and Lenka Kripac. Events such as LoveFest Sydney (a journey of sound, dance, music, art, connection, and movement), Sound Shower (combining chimes, Tibetan bowls, flutes and vocal harmonics) and Yoga Play (a restorative yoga sequence featuring violinist Maddy Boud) offer the healing, uplifting powers of sounds and meditation.

The Dome can also be hired for a range of events including conferences, product launches and award dinners, and corporate wellness programmes tailored for employees by the passionate team of A Sound Life professionals. Sydney businesses can offer their teams: yoga and mindfulness classes to focus and calm the mind, improve mood, performance, stress resilience and mental clarity; interactive music sessions to ignite the senses and cultivate creativity; energisers and icebreakers to inspire the team through the power of sound, and keynote wellness speakers with thought leaders to inspire and empower.

"Our core aim to help inspire over 50,000 Australians and international children by 2020", says Kahn. "With the extensive list of engaging and innovative programmes, upcoming activities and continued support from our partners, we are positive we can make great strides towards our goal".

This social enterprise initiative is supported by the Saunders Family, Maitri Foundation, Vittoria, George P Johnson and Example.

To view all upcoming events, workshops and sessions please visit - https://asoundlife.org/events/ and to hire the event space - https://asoundlife.org/dome/hire/

For all further information, please visit - https://asoundlife.org.

Interview with Edo Kahn

Question: What is A Sound Life Dome?

Edo Kahn: The Sound Life Dome is A Sound Life's social enterprise consciously offering an event space for making a difference. It's Sydney's first for purpose multi-function venue to be utilised by A Sound Life, other charities, community groups, educational institutions and the corporate sector. Every event held in the dome will enable A Sound Life to deliver more free music, yoga and meditation programs to people in need.

Question: What will participants of A Sound Life Dome experience?

Edo Kahn: Participants will experience inspiring programme of workshops and sessions hosted by world-renowned teachers (including Forrest Yoga, Shiva Rea and Duncan Peak). Events such as LoveFest Sydney (a journey of sound, dance, music, art, connection, and movement), Five Rhythms, Sound Shower(combining chimes, tibetan bowls, flutes and vocal harmonics) and Yoga Play, a restorative yoga sequence featuring violinist Maddy Boud) offer the healing, uplifting powers of sounds and meditation.


Question: Can you talk us through the benefits of yoga and meditation to Sydney residents?

Edo Kahn: We are in the midst of a global health crisis. One in five Australians will experience some form of mental illness at one stage of their lives. Yoga and meditation are evidence-based modalities which can help us develop resilience to stress, improve our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. At A Sound Life, we are passionate about transforming lives and making these powerful tools accessible to everyone. Our fast-paced Sydney lives and increased reliance on technology as a primary tool for communication can often leave us feeling disconnected, isolated and drained. The benefit of yoga and meditation is that they provide us universal tools for tapping into our innate wisdom, experiencing peace, joy and purpose in our daily lives.


Question: Who is welcome at A Sound Life Dome?

Edo Kahn: Everyone is welcome at the Sound Life Dome! The Dome is a safe, inclusive and innovative space to foster a kind-hearted community. Our free programs are offered to vulnerable people in our community who otherwise wouldn't have access to yoga, meditation and music. Our paid events and corporate programs inspire wellbeing, creativity and connection. Last night we were able to put on an event for an amazing charity Class Room of Hope which builds classrooms to provide education for children all over the world. The dome is a place for goodness, inspiring goodness and supporting good causes!


Question: How did meditation change your own life?

Edo Kahn: One of the benefits of meditation is meta-cognition – the ability to observe your own thoughts. Through this observation in meditation I have been able to become more equanimous, responsive to life and less reactive. Meditation has helped me calm my nervous system, and ultimately it has helped me connect with who I truly am without which it would have been very difficult to face life's challenges and losses. Science shows us that we are made up of atoms. Atoms are made up of 99.999999% space and 0.000001% matter. This means we are much more space than we are form. Much more energy than matter. Connecting with this essence or pure consciousness liberates us from the constraints of limited beliefs, overpowering emotions and the feeling like we are just a physical body. It connects us with our essence. So through meditation I have been able to connect with that essence to feel deep love, peace, bliss, connection and the inspiration to want to be of service to humanity and share this tool with others.


Question: What originally inspired you to create A Sound Life?
Edo Kahn: The first seed was when I started volunteering in disabilities facilities with my friend who was running music therapy sessions. I was a touring musician at the time and these sessions really connected me to the healing power and joy of music. Later I met Jo, and we were touring in South East Asia and India, helping at various humanitarian projects in schools, orphanages, hospitals and underserved communities. Our first project was to raise money through our concerts for heart surgeries for children in India with congenital heart defects. We later helped renovate an Orphanage in India. Through our travels we experienced the power of music, yoga and meditation. In late 2013 we decided to create a non-profit to bring together our love for music, yoga and meditation. We came up with the name A Sound Life, and a few days later we had a website and in 2014 we officially launched!


Question: What does A Sound Life hope to achieve, this year?

Edo Kahn: This year our focus is on the dome as a space for inspiration, connection and wellbeing as well as a sustainable self-funding model. Our aim this year is touch more lives than ever before and raise mainstream awareness about A Sound Life so that we can expand nationally and touch 50,000 lives by 2020.


Question: What's a typical day like, for you?

Edo Kahn: At the moment it could start anywhere between 2-6am depending on when my 10week old daughter wakes up! So some days I'm up meditating at 3am and some days I'm trying my best to get some sleep! Then there is breakfast for my step-kids, school runs, feeding animals (we have a few of these!), ASL meetings and work. A surf here and there (more there than here these days!), and time to connect with nature and make music. The dome has been a big project to launch and we have had great events on in the dome so I've been there some evenings too! Days are full but I always make time to connect within and give thanks for this incredible gift of life.


Interview by Brooke Hunter