FACULTY & CLASSES 2025

Lea Garnier: Creating A Vibrational Doorway Into The Human Crystalline Field

The ancients (Shamans and Indian Rishis) knew that the human body has a subtle energetic system that can be accessed by the application of sound and intention.  When the crystal bowls, gongs, voice, flutes and other sacred instruments are sounded with healing intention and in a sacred way, they invoke a quiet peace that can still our minds and release stress from our bodies allowing us to relax and open to receive healing.  

In this session we will explore handling and playing techniques, specific areas of the body to clear, and how as living mineral kingdoms, our sound tools lovingly partner with us within our current expression and elevate us to our highest love potential vibrationally.

Lea Garnier has worked in the healing arts for over 25 years and is an established practitioner in the field.  She is the Director of Sage Academy of Sound in Woodstock, NY which she founded in 2007. She is an Upledger trained Craniosacral Therapist, practicing since 1990.  She is a certified yoga instructor trained in the Desikachar lineage.  Lea is a student of the shamanic arts which inspired her ongoing interest in therapeutic sound for healing, which led to the organization in 2010 of the first annual comprehensive Sound Healing retreat in the northeast, The Sound Healing Retreat Intensive.  Now in its 15th year, it is an ongoing platform created specifically for the pioneers of sound healing to come together and share their knowledge and wisdom,  often resulting in deeply transformational experiences for participants.  

Due to its massive appeal, and to meet the demands  of this emerging healing modality, Sage created The Sound Healing Certification Program in 2013. The program focuses on the fundamental areas of sound healing and caters to an international audience of practitioners working in the healing arts.  In 2013 Gong Camp, with 91-year-old master Don Conreaux was created.  In 2014 Lea created an innovative program integrating sound healing and various styles of yoga, specifically Yin and Vinyasa.  This grew into a teacher training called The Yoga of Sound, a Nada Yoga Retreat.
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Silvia Nakkach: The Generative Voice of Medicine Melodies and Diverse Vocal Traditions

Delving into acoustic subtleties and Silvia’s refined melodiousness, we’ll explore the ecstatic, the shamanic, and the contemplative energy of the voice through the cosmic beauty of the Icaros, Afro-Brazilian Orixà invocations, and the Ragas of India. The music-making will be accompanied by indigenous instruments, Crystal Tone bowls, and amazing new ways to play with the harmonic resonance of the sruti box. (Silvia is the foremost music psychotherapist who introduced the sruti box to the field, including Nada yoga and sound healing in the early 80s).

This session emphasizes the mystical experience of using the voice as tone magic, offering a unique opportunity to expand your vocal horizons and tap into the profound healing power of sound. Through this liberating approach, the voice becomes a conduit to enhance the sensibility of the Subtle in the body and the mind and reconnect with the human’s intrinsic blueprint of joy.

Grammy® nominated composer, interdisciplinary vocal artist, educator, author, academic consultant, Hindustani raga musician, experimental new music, embodied improvisation, and recording artist. A former clinical psychotherapist and an internationally accredited specialist in transcultural sound and music therapies, including music in shamanic practices. For many years, she has been on the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) faculty, where she created the premier certificate program in Sound, Voice, and Music in the Healing Arts offered by a major academic institution. She teaches the Metaphysics of Sonic Resonance in East-West Psychology and Contemplative Asian and Transcultural Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). She is a Mentor at the CIIS’s Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research. She is the Founding Director of the International Vox Mundi School of Sound and the Voice, with Training Certificates in Japan, Brazil, S. Korea, and throughout the US. She is a core faculty of the Sedona Sound Healing Institute. In addition to her academic credentials, Silvia has devoted more than 40 years to the study of Classical North Indian Raga Music under the direction of the late Maestro Ali Akbar Khan and other great living masters of the Chant of Dhrupad tradition, presently under the direction of Pt. Uday Bhawalkar. Silvia has released sixteen CD albums and is a contributing author of several scholarly books. Her book Free Your Voice has been published by Sounds True.
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In 2010 Thomas completed the certification course for Sound Healing at the Sound & Music Institute at The Open Center in NYC. In 2012, he founded Ancient2Future Sound Healing.  Thomas conducts sound healing sessions for individuals and groups. Learn More

Katya Varlamova: Icaros & Andean Ceremony

In this workshop we will attune to the healing vibrations of the plant medicine as expressed through sound. We will learn about and experience plant medicine songs ("icaros") coming from the Amazon jungle. Each of them carries a unique frequency and serves a specific purpose during a plant medicine ceremony. We will have an opportunity to connect to the healing frequencies of plants though sound and medicine.

Katya Varlamova is a clinical herbalist, naturopath, plant wellness educator, and founder of the organic herbal wellness line Warmicita Herbals. Katya's journey with the plants started in back 2006. Just two short years later she was calling on their healing powers to help her recover from a devastating traffic accident. Lovingly and patiently, the plants helped her restore her physical body and held space for the much needed emotional healing to unfold.

Ever since, they have been guiding Katya on a powerful journey of self-discovery and healing magic. Years of herbal studies, adventures and work have followed. They have taken Katya around the US, South America and Europe - growing medicinal plants, making remedies, practicing clinical herbalism, and holding plant medicine circles and retreats. In her work with clients Katya relies on the healing powers of Western herbs, precious teachings of TCM and Ayurveda, and magical gifts of the Amazonian plant medicine. When the work calls for shifts in the non-physical realms of being she frequently uses flower and tree essences, gem elixirs, guided meditation, inner child work, breath work, ritual and ceremony. Katya leads plant walks, hosts women’s circles, and teaches plant medicine classes & retreats in NYC, the Hudson Valley, the Andes and the Amazon. Learn more

Scott Williams: Forest Listening

Think more being, than doing. Guided by the support of the Forest, slow down, become more embodied, and feel more enlivened. Sensorially experience the tapestry of nature while deepening your connection with the natural world, yourself by using any instrument of sound to facilliate this exchange. Like totally fir sure!

Having worked for years as a successful Creative Director, Scott sought something with a deeper resonance. Liking the tone of sound baths, he decided to attend one at Sage Academy of Sound Energy in Woodstock, NY, on a whim. That experience was his big bang and first awakened him to the power of Sound.

With a deeper understanding of what good vibes meant, he felt a strong need to go deeper and, in 2015, decided to train with Sage. Since then, he's been working with them regularly to spread sonal sunshine. He is now part of the Sage Sound Sangha and one of their senior teachers. In addition to bathing in Sound, he recently added bathing in Forests to his offerings. Practicing as a Forest Therapy Guide has allowed him to work with new kinds of vibrational medicine and wisdom – that of nature. Much like Sound, it enables him to create more opportunities for people to meet themselves at the gate of their own healing paths with the support of something greater. He divides his time between upstate and Brooklyn.

Thomas Workman: From Ancient to Future: Sound Tools Through The Ages

Thomas is a multi-instrumentalist, certified sound healer, instrument builder, visual artist, teacher and founder of Ancient2Future Sound Healing. He brings together unique musical instruments, compositional and improvisational skills, shamanic practices, and practical knowledge of the healing power of music.  In this session we will explore a wide variety of instruments such as didgeridoo, conch shells, fujara, bamboo flutes, bone flutes, nose flutes, hulusi, kamale n'goni, various drums and percussion, and much more. We will learn how to incorporate some of them into a sound bath or private setting.

Nicholas Pertrucco: The Healing Power of the Drum

In this session we will explore the use and power of shamanic drumming to explore channeling sounds for healing purposes. Drums have been used for 1000s of years by shamans all around the globe to bring protection, to cure and to journey through the power of creating altered states of consciousness.

We will learn how we can use journeying, drumming, and singing to bring very valuable information to heal ourselves and others and to channel healing energies into a client’s energy field.

Nicholas’ discovery and journey into the healing properties of sound started in 2010 while searching for a method to treat his issues with chronic depression.

Not wanting to take medication constantly, he saught alternative methods that aligned with his spiritual practices. It was when he first encountered a Himalayan singing bowl, the sound of which struck him like lightning and opened him up to their medicine. They were paramount on his healing journey and continue to be, which led him to start studing with the Sage Academy in 2014.

Ever curious, Nicholas works as a scientist, sound healer, shaman and instrument maker with certifications in reiki and hypnotherapy. He focuses on ancrstral instruments with a particular area of expertise with Himalayan singing bowls and the Conch shell. As one of the only makers, he has been tuning conch shells from all corners of the earth into sacred instruments for ceremonies and sound healers for many years.  He has studied with most of the Sage Academy pioneers, and weaves many facits of science, spirituality and nature into his teachings

Lea Garnier & The Sage Sangha: Crystal Corpus SoundHealing Ceremony

When the crystal bowls and pyramids are sounded with healing intention and in a sacred way, they invoke a quiet peace that can still our minds and release stress from our bodies allowing us to relax and open to receive healing.  As they are crystalline in structure, they are by their very nature extraordinary tools for amplifying, storing and transmitting intentions of healing, love, and well being.  Because the structure of our bodies and DNA are crystalline in nature, we respond and resonate with the frequencies associated with the properties of quartz crystal in very deep and mysterious ways.