AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
There's yoga with baby goats or yoga in the tree tops. Soon, there could be a live string quintet playing music specifically composed for your practice at a yoga studio near you. It's called StringFlo, and Buffy Gorrilla checks it out.
BUFFY GORRILLA: In a dimly lit church in a leafy suburb of Philadelphia, a string quintet is settling in. People of all ages wearing comfy clothes unroll colorful yoga mats.
RON CHELSVIG: I have never done yoga in my life.
GORRILLA: Ron Chelsvig is from Philadelphia and introduces himself with a business card that reads author, artist and pie maker.
CHELSVIG: I'm feeling a little nervous and excited. Yeah.
DANI REED: I've badgered him because the music is so wonderful.
GORRILLA: This is Chelsvig's friend Dani Reed. She's done a StringFlo class before.
REED: I am a regular yogi, but this is really special. The experience is like flowing in and out of movement and sound.
UNIDENTIFIED YOGA INSTRUCTOR: Taking a deep breath in through your nose, traveling it down the spine to your low back, let out an audible exhale.
GORRILLA: The group moves in and out of poses, flowing with the sweeping music.
UNIDENTIFIED YOGA INSTRUCTOR: We'll meet in a low lunge with our hands interlaced over our thigh.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GORRILLA: The idea for StringFlo came to composer Ellen Fishman when she was near a speaker during her own practice and could feel the music.
ELLEN FISHMAN: I felt like I was in tune with the music. There was something about the crescendo, decrescendos of the music. And so I thought, man, that could really become something where if you compose something to the practice, it could really elevate it.
GORRILLA: So when you think about a traditional yoga class, there's the generic music piped through an airy studio while you move to the instructor's cues. Fishman's composition moved away from the stuff with synthesizers and uses strings.
FISHMAN: When they play in ensemble, it becomes this organism that lives and breathes together, because the natural resonance of string instruments is a very magical thing.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GORRILLA: It's a quintet. For this class, the performers are members of Fairmount Strings. So the musicians play traditional quartet instruments - two violins, a viola and a cello - but Fishman wanted one more instrument.
FISHMAN: The double bass was added, and I'm hoping they can feel it through the floorboards.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GORRILLA: Working in her Brooklyn apartment, Fishman arranged music to work with an hourlong practice. She says to think of class like a bell curve.
FISHMAN: You don't want too much going on in the beginning. As it goes on, then we gather a little bit more speed. And at its peak, I write the most rhythmic music. And so you'll hear in the viola a kind of rhythmic line that pushes things forward. And I really think at that point, you really need help just kind of pushing through some of that pain that happens during that period.
UNIDENTIFIED YOGA INSTRUCTOR: And in the next 5 to 10 breaths, you'll find your way to full surrender.
GORRILLA: As the music fades, Chelsvig is lying on his mat, eyes closed. He's just completed his first ever Savasana, the final resting pose.
CHELSVIG: That was really, really incredible. Like, the music - it was just otherworldly.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GORRILLA: For NPR News in Philadelphia, I'm Buffy Gorrilla.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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