Gaura Vani Das

Gaura Vani Das, known on stage as Gaura Vani, is an American kirtan singer, storyteller and the leader of Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits. He was born in Los Angeles and grew up with Hare Krishna kirtan. At six he moved to Vrindavan to study sacred music at a gurukula, where he learned to sing and play the harmonium.

His road back to kirtan was not a straight one. As a teenager he acted in Hollywood, with a small part as one of Michelle Pfeiffer's students in Dangerous Minds. He has said he was not happy there, and went back to the music he had loved as a child.

In 1998 he started As Kindred Spirits with Shyam Kishore, who had studied Indian classical music from a young age. Their sound is rock, pop and Indian classical, still rooted in bhakti kirtan, with 12-string guitar, gospel choruses and hip-hop rhythms. Their album Ten Million Moons was the first release on Mantralogy, the kirtan label Equal Vision Records launched in 2009. He also sings with The Hanumen and The Juggernauts, and produced Jahnavi Harrison's debut album.

His music has been heard at Lollapalooza, FloydFest, Bhakti Fest, Omega Ecstatic Chant and Wanderlust, and he has shared the stage with Jai Uttal and Krishna Das. On 19 January 2009, the day before Barack Obama's inauguration, he produced Chant4Change, a sold-out kirtan festival at the Church of the Holy City in Washington, DC. Jai Uttal called his band "simply the most wonderful kirtan band in the western world".

Today he records and performs as a solo artist too. He gave his first solo concert in Mumbai at the Royal Opera House, sung in English and Sanskrit. He joined Radhika Das for a Janmashtami kirtan at Conway Hall in London, where Srila Prabhupada spoke in 1969. In 2026 he released the album Unlimited, and in January 2027 he leads kirtan at a retreat at Govardhan Eco-Village with Radhanath Swami.

A kirtan with Gaura Vani feels more like a concert you sing in than a performance you watch. He sings at the microphone with a band behind him, and between songs he tells the story behind each one. "Wade in the Water", for example, links an African-American spiritual to Draupadi's prayer. He changes the mood to fit the room: calm and subtle in a yoga studio, hip-hop beats in a club. The mantras stay at the centre, and the audience answers him. In his concert videos people sit with eyes closed and hands folded, sing along and clap. His Mumbai concert ran about two hours, in English and Sanskrit.