OKC opera singer Lisa Reagan Love explores ancient chants in duo Shunia
Best known as an opera singer, Oklahoma City performer Lisa Reagan Love’s latest album boasts a global array of musicians, from German percussionist Cyril Atef on mbira, or African thumb piano, and Russian native on Inna Dudukina on duduk, an Armenian oboe, to American musician Kirsten Agresta Copely on Celtic harp and renowned Moroccan artist Hassan Hakmoun on two instruments — sintir and qarqaba — as well as vocals from his native land.
“It definitely, to me, has a world music feel to it just because all of those instruments that are in there coloring everything,” Reagan Love said.
“I love being creative. But part of this chant album is that I love doing an offering to the world that might be comforting, to create some solace for their hearts.”
A classically trained performer who has shared the stage with Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Renee Fleming, Reagan Love joined forces about six years ago with fellow opera singer Suzanne Jackson to form the duo Shunia. Released earlier this year, the duo’s self-titled sophomore album fuses Sanskrit chants and cross-cultural rhythms with ancient poetry and Latin prayer.
“If both she and I had not been so involved in this in the personal parts of our lives, we probably would have never done it. ... It’s a different style of singing,” Reagan Love said.
“Like being a really great athlete, you can’t sing opera for forever ... and yoga and chanting have always been close to my heart.”
Forming a friendship
A former Miss Oklahoma, Reagan Love studied voice as an undergraduate under the late, legendary Florence Birdwell at Oklahoma City University. She and Jackson met when they were working on their master degrees in opera at the University of Maryland, and their friendship continued as they pursued professional careers in Washington, D.C.
“We both sang at Washington National Opera together for 25 years, and then she had gone down this road of teaching yoga, creating a whole program of yoga for singers. And I created the soundtrack for it,” Reagan Love said.
Since 1998, Reagan Love has been recording albums and composing music. She moved back to her home state in 2008 and accepted a voice faculty position at OCU.
But the distance between their home bases — Jackson is based in Pennsylvania — didn’t stop the longtime friends from taking their musical bond to a new place.
“We’ve just sort of been in that world together, loving yoga and loving chant. ... We decided to do a chant album together because we’d both been chanting to other chant albums all these years,” Reagan Love said.
Devotees of kundalini yoga, which involves chanting, singing, breathing exercises, and repetitive poses, Reagan Love and Jackson named their musical partnership Shunia, which means “still point.”
“It’s where you try to get to when you meditate, where the mind is free of all the clutter of thought. That’s shunia,” Reagan Love said.
The pair traveled to Los Angeles to collaborate with New Age music producer Thomas Barquee on Shunia’s 2016 debut album “Ascend.”
Challenging the opera singers
For the duo’s self-titled follow-up, Reagan Love sought out producer Jamshied Sharifi, who won a 2018 Tony Award for his orchestrations for the Broadway musical “The Band’s Visit.”
“He’s an amazing arranger ... and he knows so many brilliant world music players that it took on a more world music sound,” she said, adding that she is working with Sharifi on another album combining her favorite poems with original music she’s composing.
Sharifi, who also created the orchestrations for Sting’s Broadway musical “The Last Ship,” challenged to the opera singers to commit to singing in the most chantlike way they could.
“Where there’s no vibrato, that’s a different use of your muscles and coordination than opera singing. Opera singing is really, technically, the most difficult thing to do. But for an opera singer to sing in a straight tone is hard. ... It’s opposite of what you’re used to doing,” Reagan Love said.
“At the end of the day of recording, we’d just sing full-out opera sound, just like let the voice go and feel free, be
cause in opera, you’re releasing your voice. When you’re doing a straight tone, you’re holding your voice. And you can only do so many hours of that a day. ... But what he guided us to do, it makes sense musically when you hear it.”
Chanting for joy
Known as “the Godfather of Gnawa Music,” Hakmoun headlined the global group of talents Sharifi assembled for Shunia’s eponymous album. The Moroccan singer and musician performed on two of the songs, including the joyful “Sa Re Sa Sa,” adapted from one of the duo’s favorite mantras.
“He’s an improvisational singer, so he’s singing from inspiration that he’s hearing from the chant and from our voices and from the music,” Reagan Love said.
Hakmoun also appeared in Shunia’s “Sa Re Sa Sa” video, which filmed outside on a private farm in Pennsylvania with COVID-19 precautions in place.
“One of the dancers ... was crying, and she said, ‘I just can’t tell you what it means to me to be out of my apartment and to be dancing for people, instead of just doing Zoom in my apartment.’
These kids were on Broadway, and then, bam, they have no work and they have to stay in shape,” Reagan Love said.
“The gratitude of being together and being outside and able to perform in front of humans was palpable — and I think it came across in the video.”
The new album also includes “Har Hare Hari Wahe Guru,” the duo’s other collaboration with Hakmoun; “Breeze at Dawn,” which is based on a poem by 13th-century Persian poet Rumi; and “Alleluia,” a Gregorian-style chant in which the pair sings Psalms 23 in Latin, accompanied by flute, strings and drums.
Sharing comfort
While Shunia delayed the release of the new album to this year due to COVID-19, the duo debuted the prayerful song “Akal” in 2020 during the pandemic’s dark early days.
“We thought it was important to put that out before the album could go out just because of the meaning of it, trying to comfort people in this time of loss. ... It’s in Sanskrit, so it’s a lovely language to sing in. It’s a spiritual language that has a lot of meaning,” she said.
“Because of our opera background ... we had his beautiful countermelody going on the top of the chant that was in Italian. It’s ‘ risposa in pace’ (’rest in peace’) which is a very classical line.”
The single made the top 10 on the New Age Music Guide chart.
“We beat Enya,” Reagan Love said. “That was huge.”
Although she decided to take a break from teaching two years ago, Reagan Love still performs as a classical vocalist, most recently in May as the cantor for Canterbury Voices’ world-premiere choral piece “Of Perpetual Solace.”
“She has a bright light and energy that flows through her in performance. She is a talented artist who is genuinely fun to work with, because of her infectious positivity and creativity. Her beautiful voice is grounded in the earth, and she brings an ethereal and spiritual element at the same time,” said Pam Mowry, Canterbury Voices executive director.
“She’s very versatile as an artist ... and I do think that this more recent project is true to who she is as a person and not just an artist.”
For more information on Shunia’s music, go to www.shuniasound.com.