Wade Morissette

Last updated

Wade Morissette
Born
Wade Imre Morissette

(1974-06-01) June 1, 1974 (age 50)
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Relatives Alanis Morissette (twin sister)
Souleye (brother-in-law)
Musical career
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Musician
  • yoga and reiki instructor
  • therapist
  • author
Instrument(s)
Years active2004–present
LabelsNutone (Nettwerk)

Wade Imre Morissette (born June 1, 1974) is a Canadian kirtan and indie pop-rock musician.

Contents

Early life

Wade Morissette was born on 1 June 1974 at Riverside Hospital of Ottawa in Ottawa, Ontario, [1] the son of Georgia Mary Ann Feuerstein, a Hungarian-born teacher, and Alan Richard Morissette, a high school principal of French and Irish descent. Wade is the twin brother of Alanis Morissette, [2] whom he names as "one of the biggest influences in my life"; [3] they have an older brother, Chad.

Music

Wade took to music at an early age, studying piano as a child and guitar and djembe in his teens. During a trip to India, he encountered devotional yoga and chanting, and decided to combine his interests in yoga and music, to create his own blend of indie rock/pop music with Sanskrit and English chants.

In 2004, Wade was asked to be an ambassador for Lululemon, the popular yoga-inspired athletic apparel company. At the same time, he had self-released his debut album, Sargam Scales of Music. This turned into a world tour to promote both his album and the clothing line with the company signing on as a sponsor. The Lululemon Yoga Pilgrimage kicked off in 2005 and took Wade to Tokyo, Hong Kong and 32 cities in North America and continued on through early 2006 with stops in Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico. [4]

In late 2006, Nettwerk Music Group CEO and yoga enthusiast Terry McBride signed Wade to the label's Nutone Music division. [5] Wade has since released his second and third albums, Strong as Diamonds: Om Vajra Kaya Namaha, in 2007 and Maha Moha – The Great Delusion in 2008. [4]

During live performances, Wade often begins with bliss dance and ends with a kirtan. Wade, on guitar and harmonium, sings out a phrase; the audience responds until the musicians and audience mesh.

Yoga, Reiki and other

Wade has been practising and teaching yoga since 1995. He has completed Iyengar, Classical Ashtanga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga teacher training. He has studied Vinyasa, Viniyoga, Anusara and Kriya yoga, as well as zazen, Vedic chanting, and active movement and sound meditations with some of the best-known teachers in Canada, North America, and India. He is also a Reiki master, certified Phoenix Rising yoga therapist, and Viniyoga Therapist. He leads teacher trainings, workshops, retreats, and music-dance evenings internationally.

Writing and speaking

Wade has had features published in the Yoga Journal and Maclean's Magazine. His work also includes the book Transformative Yoga: Five Keys to Unlocking Inner Bliss (2009), [6] which he co-authored with his twin Alanis Morissette. He is also planning a series of motivational seminars. [7]

Discography

Videography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alanis Morissette</span> Canadian and American alternative rock musician (born 1974)

Alanis Nadine Morissette is a Canadian and American singer, songwriter and musician known for her emotive mezzo-soprano voice and confessional songwriting. She began her music career in Canada in the early 1990s with two dance-pop albums. In 1995, she released the alternative rock album Jagged Little Pill, which sold more than 33 million copies globally and propelled her to become a cultural phenomenon. Morissette won the 1996 Grammy Award for Album of the Year among other accolades, and the album was adapted into a 2018 rock musical. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has Jagged Little Pill on their 200 Definitive Albums list, and it appeared on various editions of Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" guide. Its lead single, "You Oughta Know", was also included on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashtanga vinyasa yoga</span> School of modern yoga

Ashtanga vinyasa yoga is a style of yoga as exercise popularised by K. Pattabhi Jois during the twentieth century, often promoted as a dynamic form of classical Indian (hatha) yoga. Jois claimed to have learnt the system from his teacher Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. The style is energetic, synchronising breath with movements. The individual poses (asanas) are linked by flowing movements (vinyasas).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asana</span> Postures in hatha yoga and modern yoga practice

An āsana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose, and later extended in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of position, adding reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali define "asana" as "[a position that] is steady and comfortable". Patanjali mentions the ability to sit for extended periods as one of the eight limbs of his system. Asanas are also called yoga poses or yoga postures in English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tirumalai Krishnamacharya</span> Yogi (1888–1989)

Tirumalai Krishnamacharya was an Indian yoga teacher, ayurvedic healer and scholar. He is seen as one of the most important gurus of modern yoga, and is often called "Father of Modern Yoga" for his wide influence on the development of postural yoga. Like earlier pioneers influenced by physical culture such as Yogendra and Kuvalayananda, he contributed to the revival of hatha yoga.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krishna Das (singer)</span> American vocalist

Krishna Das is an American vocalist known for his performances of Hindu devotional music known as kirtan. He has released seventeen albums since 1996. He performed at the 2013 Grammy Awards, where his album Live Ananda (2012) was nominated for the 2013 Grammy Award for Best New Age Album. He's been described by the New York Times as "the chant master of American yoga".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Too Hot (Alanis Morissette song)</span> 1991 single by Alanis Morissette

"Too Hot" is a dance-pop and new jack swing song co-written by Alanis Morissette and Leslie Howe, and produced by Howe for Morissette's debut album, Alanis (1991). It was released as the album's first single in May 1991.

Jai Uttal is an American musician. He is a Grammy-nominated singer and “a pioneer in the world music community with his eclectic East-meets-West sound.”

<i>Flavors of Entanglement</i> 2008 studio album by Alanis Morissette

Flavors of Entanglement is the seventh studio album, fifth international release and last Maverick Records release by Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette. The album, which was originally set for an April release, came out on May 30, 2008, in Germany, Benelux, and Ireland, internationally on June 2, and in the United States on June 10. It was produced by Guy Sigsworth. Flavors won Pop Album of the Year prize at the 2009 Juno Awards. The album gets its name from a lyric in the track "Moratorium".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Schultz</span> American yoga teacher (1950-2011)

Larry Schultz was an American yoga teacher who was a long-time student of the founder of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, K. Pattabhi Jois. Schultz is primarily recognized as the creator of Rocket Yoga, a style derived from Jois's, which is known to be one of the original forms of Vinyasa Flow or Power Yoga.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Newman (singer)</span> American singer

David Newman was a sacred chant master, recording artist, singer/songwriter, best-selling author, and inspirational teacher. David, also known as Durga Das, traveled extensively sharing his music and teachings on the path of love as a vehicle for spiritual awakening.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Will Blunderfield</span> Musical artist

Mark William Kent Blunderfield is a Canadian singer-songwriter and yoga teacher. He is signed to Nettwerk Records/Sony Music (WMG) with music released through Spirit Voyage Records. Xtra identified Blunderfield as an activist for diversity and social equality in schools. His fame reached mainstream proportions in Japan in 2012, where he embarked on extensive tours and achieved success on radio with the single "Long Time Sun," featured on the international version of his album. Blunderfield has also gained attention as an internet sensation, credited for his contributions to the male rewilding movement, which explores alternative perspectives on modern masculinity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharon Gannon</span>

Sharon Gannon is a yoga teacher, animal rights advocate, musician, author, dancer and choreographer. Along with David Life, she is the co-founder of the Jivamukti Yoga method.

<i>Havoc and Bright Lights</i> 2012 studio album by Alanis Morissette

Havoc and Bright Lights is the eighth studio album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette, first released in Japan on August 22, 2012. The album is her first release on Collective Sounds, and in the US by RED Distribution and marks her first release away from Maverick Records, her label since 1995. It was produced by Guy Sigsworth and Joe Chiccarelli, the former having produced her previous album, Flavors of Entanglement (2008).

Bryan Kest is an American yoga teacher. Recognized as the creator of one form of Power Yoga, he is the founder of Santa Monica Power Yoga, based in Santa Monica, California. Kest has led yoga classes, retreats and workshops worldwide. He is credited with pioneering the practice of donation-based yoga in the United States.

Wynne Paris was a new-age and world beat musician/producer with a special focus on yoga music and kirtan, the call-and-response singing of Bhakti yoga. His live performance combines Kirtan chanting, American music, world beat rhythms and raga scales. He sings in both English and Sanskrit. Paris plays a variety of musical instruments which include the guitar, sarod, harmonium, saz and percussion. Wynne Paris died suddenly of a heart attack on March 22, 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yoga as exercise</span> Physical activity consisting mainly of yoga poses

Yoga as exercise is a physical activity consisting mainly of postures, often connected by flowing sequences, sometimes accompanied by breathing exercises, and frequently ending with relaxation lying down or meditation. Yoga in this form has become familiar across the world, especially in the US and Europe. It is derived from medieval Haṭha yoga, which made use of similar postures, but it is generally simply called "yoga". Academics have given yoga as exercise a variety of names, including modern postural yoga and transnational anglophone yoga.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yoga in the United States</span> Yoga in the United States

The history of yoga in the United States begins in the 19th century, with the philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; Emerson's poem "Brahma" states the Hindu philosophy behind yoga. More widespread interest in yoga can be dated to the Hindu leader Vivekananda's visit from India in 1893; he presented yoga as a spiritual path without postures (asanas), very different from modern yoga as exercise. Two other early figures, however, the women's rights advocate Ida C. Craddock and the businessman and occultist Pierre Bernard, created their own interpretations of yoga, based on tantra and oriented to physical pleasure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yoga in Britain</span>

Yoga in Britain is the practice of yoga, including modern yoga as exercise, in Britain. Yoga, consisting mainly of postures (asanas), arrived in Britain early in the 20th century, though the first classes that contained asanas were described as exercise systems for women rather than yoga. Classes called yoga, again mainly for women, began in the 1960s. Yoga grew further with the help of television programmes and the arrival of major brands including Iyengar Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postural yoga in India</span> History of how yoga returned to India

Postural yoga began in India as a variant of traditional yoga, which was a mainly meditational practice; it has spread across the world and returned to the Indian subcontinent in different forms. The ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali mention yoga postures, asanas, only briefly, as meditation seats. Medieval Haṭha yoga made use of a small number of asanas alongside other techniques such as pranayama, shatkarmas, and mudras, but it was despised and almost extinct by the start of the 20th century. At that time, the revival of postural yoga was at first driven by Indian nationalism. Advocates such as Yogendra and Kuvalayananda made yoga acceptable in the 1920s, treating it as a medical subject. From the 1930s, the "father of modern yoga" Krishnamacharya developed a vigorous postural yoga, influenced by gymnastics, with transitions (vinyasas) that allowed one pose to flow into the next.

Post-lineage yoga, also called non-lineage yoga, is a contemporary form of yoga practised outside any major school or guru's lineage. The term was introduced by the ethnographer and scholar-practitioner Theodora Wildcroft. She stated that with the deaths of the pioneering gurus of modern yoga such as B. K. S. Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois, yoga teachers, especially women, have been reclaiming their practice through their yoga communities, resisting commercialization as well as lineage.

References

  1. Cantin, Paul (December 29, 2015). Alanis Morissette: A Biography. St. Martin's Publishing. ISBN   9781250109170.
  2. Harnett, Shamona (October 18, 2010). "He oughta know". Winnipeg Free Press . Retrieved July 16, 2015.
  3. "Wade Imre Morissette on MySpace Music". MySpace.
  4. 1 2 "Wade Imre Morissette | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
  5. McQueen, Anne Marie (May 10, 2007). "Alanis' twin releases yoga album". Sun Media . Archived from the original on July 16, 2015. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
  6. Wade Imre Morissette (2009). Transformative Yoga: Five Keys to Unlocking Inner Bliss. New Harbinger Publications. ISBN   9781572246201.
  7. "Living Your Joy | Today's Vancouver Woman". Today's Vancouver Woman.