One Thousand Petals

One Thousand Petals is Adrian Freedman’s 15th studio album. It features collaborations with Deva Premal, Ayla Schafer, Geshe Lama Ahbay Rinpoche, Chandra Lacombe, Helen Bøksle, Sanju Sahai, and over 30 other singers and musicians from around the world.

The album The Singles Find out about the release

Recorded in multiple locations over the past 5 years, it represents a culmination of Adrian’s love of cross-cultural musical collaborations, as well as the beginning of a new project to record his medicine mantra songs.

The songs on the One Thousand Petals album are taken from Adrian’s medicine songbook Lotus Rising. These songs arise as messages of hope, transformation, a longing for peace and understanding, connection with ancestral spirits, and a reverence for the natural beauties of the forests, rivers, mountains and beyond.

Adrian lived for many years in Japan, India, Brazil and other countries, deeply immersed in nature, in spiritual retreats, and in creative projects with other musicians. His medicine songs present a seamless weaving of the chants and mantras of Oriental traditions together with the poetic imagery of his original English lyrics.   The tracks of the One Thousand Petals album have a gentle, dreamy, hypnotic quality, evoking a heart-opening, uplifting mood of tranquility. Each track features a different vocal soloist, while the subtle instrumental layers include string quartet, piano, Indian tabla, African kora, guitars, keyboards and Adrian’s Zen shakuhachi flute as a unifying thread flowing through the whole.   

The album is set to be released in February 2025.

Om Mani Padme Hum

Om Mani Padme Hum is the first single to be released from One Thousand Petals. It features several musicians from Brazil including Chandra Lacombe, Carlos Gomes, Antonio Arvind and Txai Fernando. Also the British singers Lua Maria, Charlotte Mabon and the Glorious Chorus. Percussion is played by Sanhu Sahai, guitars by Ravi Freeman and Mike Stanton.

Om Mani Padme Hum is the quintessential buddhist mantra. Some monks spend their entire lives chanting it. In essence a simple homage to the miraculous beauty of the lotus flower, it can be loosely translated as ‘Praise to the Jewel in Heart of the Lotus”. Considered as the nectar of all the spiritual teachings of the Buddha, chanting or singing this mantra is seen as a way of entering fully into the compassionate space of the heart.

“The melody arrived at an unexpected moment many years ago. At that point I had never sung a Buddhist mantra in a medicine ceremony before. I remember that I turned to a friend sitting by the altar table with me, during a silent moment of the ritual, and I whispered to her  “Maybe we should sing a mantra – do you know any?”  She whispered back to me “Om Mani Padme Hum”.  I asked her if she knew a melody for the mantra and she shook her head.   So I closed my eyes, emptied my mind and sat there for a few moments until this melody naturally arose and I found myself singing it. After a few repetitions the whole group were joining in, and then I reached for my guitar and very naturally the chord sequence to accompany the melody emerged.   Many years later the music has evolved into this multi-layered arrangement with all these stunning musicians and singers. I’m watching the whole process slowly unfold like a lotus flower itself.”