Acknowledgements

A project of this scale is not the work of a single person. I was fortunate enough to have the cooperation of many wonderful devotees from different parts of the world to whom I will be ever grateful. During a period of two years I recorded 108 songs which all needed a choir. This was to be the special feature of this song collection. I wanted to present all songs in the familiar call-and-response fashion, so that listeners could easily participate in the chanting by joining the choir, and thus learn to sing even the less known bhajanas included in Sacred Song Symphony. The members of the different choirs, some of who also played mṛdaṅga, are these devotees: Argentina: Anantarupa d, Anuradha dd, Gaurananda d, Lalita, Madhavendra Puri d, Natarani dd, Natavara Nityananda d, Noelia, Phanindra d, Vidyananda d and Visnurata d Bulgaria: Gauranga-karunasindhu d, Gopigitamrta dd, Pandava-bandhava d and Tulsi d Chile: Devarsi Narada d, Gauranga-prema d, Indurekha dd, Nanda-nandana d and Violeta Germany: Ananteshvar d, Anish, Indulekha-priya dd, Irina, Kamalatika dd and Krishna-lila d India: Devadharma d, Hirin and Rohit Spain: Caitanyacandra d, Devarsi d, Gauranga-lila dd, Godruma-pati d, Puspa Gopala dd, Vasudeva d and Visakha dd

Parama karuna d, Jayasri dd and Maha Bahu Govinda d helped with compiling quotes by Śrīla Prabhupāda and edited the graphics of the music scores. Puspa Gopala dd gave suggestions for improving the English text. Sucandra d, an old friend and collaborator, provided the music scores for 65 songs. The other 43 melodies were transcribed by Indurekha dd and Devarsi Narada d who also played the violin on some songs. Devakinandana d, a native of West Bengal, recorded an a capella rendition of over 40 songs, giving us a glimpse of how authentic Bengali pronunciation sounds like. Jambula d designed the logo, and Ajita Govinda d was my liaison in New Delhi where Nandagopal Jivan d and his team designed the cover and oversaw the printing. Last, but not least, my gratitude goes to Hladini dd who provided the finances for the printing.