“When it comes to playing the cello, we're all Buddhists.”
Barbara Bogatin
Cellist, Mindfulness Educator
"The embodied wisdom we cultivate during meditation practice can become meaningful skills that help us in our music-making---mindful practice, quieting the critical mind, and maintaining a calm presence in stressful situations.
For me, meditation and music practice are like two sides of the same coin."
Barbara Bogatin is a cellist with the San Francisco Symphony, chamber music player, and educator in the field of mindfulness training for musicians. In 35 years of practicing insight meditation, she has integrated the embodied knowledge this contemplative work nurtures into effective methods for improving instrumental practice and performance.
Along with her husband, neuroscientist Clifford Saron, she has led workshops on meditation and music practice called “The Buddha, the Brain, and Bach,” at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Esalen Institute, Stanford Symposium for Music and the Brain, Telluride Compassion Festival, USC Center for Mindfulness Science, South Africa Conference on Mindfulness, the Ecology of Mind and Matter Symposium in Todi, Italy, and the Nirakara Institute in Madrid, Spain.
Performing and teaching with Sylvia Boostein and Friends
On-Land in Spirit Rock Community Meditation Center (Woodacre, CA), or Online via Zoom
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
10:00AM – 1:00PM PT
Join us to celebrate the arrival of 2025 with the New Year team—Sylvia Boorstein (a founding Spirit Rock teacher), Brahmani Liebman (Kripalu Yoga Teacher, Trainer & Mindful Movement Teacher), Barbara Bogatin (San Francisco Symphony cellist), and Barbara Borden (Drums, Percussion, The Keeper of the Beat)—as we individually and collectively respond to the fundamental question, “What, in challenging times, keeps the mind alert and buoyant, and the heart hopeful and generous?”
Ukiah, CA
June 15-18, 2025
This unique 4-day Mindful Audition Bootcamp brings an invaluable perspective to audition preparation and implementation. The ancient contemplative practices of meditation, mindful breathing, and movement techniques drawn from yoga and Buddhist traditions are combined with the best contemporary methods of audition training for today’s musicians.
Ukiah, CA
June 18-21, 2025
We will explore how to integrate the skills cultivated through insight meditation into your instrumental practice and performance. Each day will feature a different topic of discussion and related experiential workshop.
There will also be opportunities to have one-on-one sessions with Barbara and other faculty members.
This program is open to students, professionals, and amateurs with different instruments.
"Science and the Wholeness of Life", Prato, Italy
June 29-July 6, 2025
Cortona Week is an interdisciplinary residency where graduate students and young managers from all over the world and from all disciplines come in contact (in addition to several critical scientists) with artists, musicians, spiritual leaders, poets, professionals in medicine and psychology, and politicians.
We work together in round table discussions, lectures and experiential workshops, where the participants can engage, for instance, in painting, sculpture or music, meditation, theatre choosing by themselves which aspects of life are more important for their own equilibrium.
Teisendorf, Germany
July 11-13, 2025
Our workshop invites you to explore the fascinating connection between contemplative practice, brain research and music. We immerse ourselves in the world of guided meditations and discover how they can enrich our entire lives.
With meditation teacher Nikki Mirghafori
Rhinebeck, NY
August 17-22, 2025
"Whatever you frequently reflect and ponder upon, that becomes the inclination of your mind," the Buddha said. In other words, you are what you practice.
Throughout this experiential retreat, we examine this essential observation from our intertwined perspectives of contemplative practice, brain science, and music.
I'd love to hear from you -- with inquiries about workshops, seminars, or private coaching please email me at