“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.

Read more about Barbara here.

Celebrating 25 years with the San Francisco Symphony

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