AWAKEN Season 2 Launch Party

Join singer-songwriter and AWAKEN podcast host Raveena Aurora for a special K2 Friday Night to celebrate the launch of AWAKEN season 2. Cocktails, art, music by DJ Roshni Samlal, a meditation moment, and podcast listening party make a heady mix, with free admission from 6:00 to 10:00 PM.

K2 Friday Night schedule:

DJ Roshni Samlal performs in the K2 Lounge | 6:00–10:00 PM

Free temporary AWAKEN tattoo station in the K2 Lounge | 6:00–8:00 PM

Welcome remarks from Chief Programmatic Officer Tim McHenry | 6:50 PM

Museum-wide meditation moment featuring Raveena Aurora’s Let Your Breath Become a Flower | 7:00 - 7:15 PM

Tour of the Mandala Lab | 7:15–7:55 PM

Listening party in the Theater of AWAKEN Season 2 Episode 4: ENVY | 7:30–8:15 PM

ABOUT AWAKEN PODCAST SEASON 2:

AWAKEN podcast season 2 is hosted by singer and songwriter Raveena Aurora and is inspired by the Rubin Museum’s Mandala Lab. Using a Tibetan Buddhist mandala as a guide, scientists, Buddhist teachers, writers, artists, activists, and others share how they wrestle with five challenging emotions—anger, pride, attachment, envy, and ignorance—and what those feelings can teach us if we get curious. The seven-episode series launches on October 4, with one new episode a week released on Tuesdays.

About Raveena Aurora

For Raveena, music is meant to be a “complete expression of the self.” It’s a truth she’s leaned on through a whirlwind couple of years, which saw a potent flurry of output and a pointed ascent into the conversation with her critically acclaimed 2019 debut full-length, Lucid, and 2020 follow-up, Moonstone EP.

Inspired by artists like Sade, Corinne Bailey Rae, Minnie Riperton, and Indian singer Asha Puthli, Raveena is a highly creative, dynamic, and spiritual artist who aims to build fully realized worlds within each of her projects: conceptual experimentations in sound, threaded together by stories of healing and self-realization meant to be experienced from start to finish.

Her latest offering, Asha’s Awakening, takes listeners on an epic deep dive into Indian culture—an endeavor that has been in the works for three years. An homage to her heritage as a first-generation descendant of genocide survivors and Reiki healers, the album incorporates influences from Bollywood and celebrated Indian artists like R.D. Burman and Asha Bhosle, as well as Western music—specifically R&B, rock and soul— and melds the genres prevalent throughout Raveena’s catalog into one cohesive body of work. The album also marries eras in time, fusing together a contemporary take on sounds influenced by Alice Coltrane and Asha Puthli from the 60s and 70s with those of Timbaland, Missy Elliott, M.I.A., and Jai Paul from the early 2000s. It is a labor of love that represents her evolution as an artist. Raveena remarks, “I think it’s really fun putting people in uncomfortable positions to receive new sides of you. The human experience is so vast.”

About the DJ

DJ Roshni Samlal is a New York–based tabla player who hails from the West Indies, where she was initiated into the ancient tradition of Indian classical music by her vocalist father. She has continued her tutelage in the Benares style of tabla playing under Shri Tapan Modak and is currently a student of the epic Farukhbad exponent Anindo Chatterjee. While her passion is Indian classical tabla, she has also played folk, jazz, and other genres. Samlal has performed at notable local venues such as Knitting Factory, Pianos, and The Bitter End.

Lead support for the Rubin Museum is provided by the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Bob and Lois Baylis, Barbara Bowman, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Noah P. Dorsky, Fred Eychaner, Christopher J. Fussner, Agnes Gund, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global, Henry Luce Foundation, The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Matt and Ann Nimetz, Rasika and Girish Reddy, Shelley and Donald Rubin, Tiger Baron Foundation, and Ellen Bayard Weedon Foundation.

General operating support of the Rubin Museum of Art is provided by Daphne Hoch Cunningham and John Cunningham, Anne E. Delaney, Dalio Philanthropies, the Estate of Lisina M. Hoch, Andres Mata, Dan Gimbel of NEPC, Inc., The Prospect Hill Foundation, Basha Rubin and Scott Grinsell, Linda Schejola, Eileen Caulfield Schwab, Tong-Tong Zhu and Jianing Liu, with generous donations from the Museum’s Board of Trustees, individual donors and members, and corporate and foundation supporters.

Public funds are provided by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.