St Johns Church, Miami Beach

St Johns Church in Miami Beach, Florida, is the setting for this gathering led by Vicki Richards, a violinist, improviser, composer and educator who also teaches yoga. It will interest people in Miami and Miami Beach who are drawn to a contemplative evening shaped by music, particularly music rooted in North Indian raga.

About Vicki Richards

Vicki Richards has worked as a professional musician for more than four decades. Her training is in traditional North Indian raga, classical European music and electric fusion. She began playing professionally with an orchestra while also performing electric avant-garde fusion.

Her path started early. She joined her public school's instrumental program at nine, encouraged by her musical father, and decided at fourteen that music was her calling. In 1976 she commissioned a custom-built solid-body electric violin.

In 1979 she began studying Hindustani music in Banaras, India, as a disciple of Pt. Amarnath Mishra, and also studied with the violinist Dr. N. Rajam and Pandit Sharda Sahai. Grants from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Smithsonian Institution supported her studies in India, and in 1986 she toured for the Festival of India.

The Place

The gathering takes place at St Johns Church, on Pine Tree Drive in Miami Beach, Florida.

The same series has also met at other spaces in Miami, including Zen Village, the FIU South Campus and a Unitarian Universalist church, as well as at St Peters Church in New York City. The evening at St Johns is one of several places where this community has gathered.