Jonathan Kay

“Resting in the peaceful Soul of Indian Classical music;

emanating from the creative Heart of Jazz improvisation.”

Jonathan Kay is an internationally recognized cross-cultural jazz multi-instrumentalist (saxophone, esraj, bansuri, shakuhachi), hailing from Toronto, Canada. In search of non-western ways of musical knowing, he moved to Kolkata, India, and for 10 years formally studied North Indian Raga music and innovated its expression on the saxophone, as well as the rare 21-stringed instrument, the bora esraj. Jonathan has also traveled on two occasions to learn Japanese shakuhachi music in Kyoto.

Jonathan is a PhD student in the department of East-West Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco under the mentorship of Dr. Debashish Banerji. He has been studying East-West psychology and philosophy, specializing in Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga, and non-classical western philosophy based on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Jonathan’s work aims to explore the transcultural horizons of thought and sound, and his dissertation will develop an immanent approach to musical hermeneutics. His artistic practice explores experimental approaches to composition and contemplative approaches to improvisation.