You may remember Kevin Supina from funk ensemble Envy Alo, but today’s tale tells a different story. The saxophonist, vocalist and songwriter has been switching gears and creating his own role in a niche genre — yoga music. This musical transition may seem surprising to those who are acquainted only with the horn section side of Supina’s musical identity, but the yoga lifestyle is nothing new to him. When he’s not creating and playing music, Supina is teaching yoga, and last week he combined his two worlds with the release of Surya, a “soundtrack for 60-min yoga practices.”

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Having been practicing yoga since he was a teenager, plus teaching yoga for the last five years, Supina is as qualified to create a yoga-focused music soundtrack as anyone in the Denver community.

“I’ve always taken great care creating playlists for my classes,” said Supina, “because the right music can be very impactful and support the flow state that we aim to cultivate.”

Not having felt a connection to much of the “new age” yoga music being produced currently, he simply took matters into his own hands. “I decided to combine by musical talents and yoga teacher sensibilities to create music that checked all the boxes for me,” Supina said. Surya is the beautiful end result.

Yoga music

Photo Courtesy of Kevin Supina

During the first year of the pandemic, Supina released Elements, his first attempt at creating yoga music, comprised of five 30-minute sequences. Having found success there, he moved ahead with composing hour-long accompaniments.

Supina’s education in jazz music and background in jam music embedded a love of improvisation in his production and performance style, perfect for the flowing nature of modern yoga classes. Dabbling in producing more electronic, synth-based music, however, gave him “a lot more control over the entire sonic palette.” A much more meticulous process than the spontaneous group improvisation that he’s used to onstage, Elements and Surya opened up a whole new side of production for Supina, while keeping the spirit of flow alive.

Yoga music

Over the course of 14 months, Surya was created, with Supina playing every instrument and designing all the synth sounds. “I started by just making a ton of short demos, exploring different sounds, grooves and harmonic and melodic ideas,” he said. The album is inspired by the flow of energy as the sun travels through the sky in a day, with each song representing a different time of day. “Once I landed on the concept of a track, I started to select the demos that fit those moods and expanded them into full songs,” Supina said. From there, he added saxophone melodies, piano parts or just “messed around” until finding the perfect piece to his musical puzzle.

Supina’s intention for Surya was to create a resource for yoga teachers and practitioners. As a teacher himself, he uses his own music while leading his classes at White Lotus Therapeutics, which hosted a special release class for the album just last week. Like the practice of yoga itself, his plan for Surya is an organic one, where yogis can enjoy an hour of music that was intentionally created to support the practice. “I’m hoping to continue sharing it with the yoga community both here in Denver and elsewhere.”

Listen to Surya here.