"Music is the ultimate artform. It is the only one of the major artforms one can enjoy outwardly and innwardly either with eyes open or closed. For me it is expression, an outlet for my creativity, a way of communicating both with musicians and listeners, a way to have fun, a way to be social, a way to be alone, the ultimate meditation and one of the most powerful healing modalities. I'm a composer so I enjoy the act of creating and producing a musical work, but it's all just to arrive in this moment, here and now. So the ultimate music is improvisation when I'm not following anything pre-arranged, the music is flowing through me, the "I" is not present. No thoughts, my fingers or voice go to notes automatically. That's it! Inspired compositions come from this magical state of being, which I try to capture in my recorded music.” Tarshito 2005

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Tarshito is essentially a self-taught musician with some musical studies through Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg and Berkely Jazz School, Boston, USA. Longtime exponent of celestial music, he has followed a diverse and fascinating path into the hypnotic forest of ambient music. While studying Mechanical Engeneering at university he blossomed as a composer and diversified as a guitarist playing with some leading South African musicians. Experimenting with sounds, recordings of nauture and creating ambient music tapes in the mid-seventies, he was way ahead of his time. Tarshito also had some T.V. and recording experiences with more conventional music. Not being one to sit solely in his studio and dream, Tarshito has gone ”on location” to feel out haunting atmospheres to enrich his music. After post-graduating in Solar Energy at the University of Cape Town in 1977, he ”hit the road”, spending the next five years travelling through South America learning the music of Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Chile. He performed with leading musicians, and played in sacred Incan temples. A series of solo concerts, ”Rock-Ragas and Mantras” (a unique blend of Indian ragas), were very well received in Brazil and Chile. They were followed by a year of playing meditation and celebration music in meditation centres in Brazil, california and in South afrika, where Tarshito finally returned in 1983. There he recorded music for T.V. and video.

 

In 1985 he moved to Australia, living today at Mullumbimy, a small town in the famous Byron Bay shire. Indian, Latin and African tribal music have had a strong influence on Tarshito. He blends the ”primitive” with rock, jazz and classical notations to give his work a unique power. Ambient music has long been recognised for its therapeutic relaxing qualities, and Tarshito’s is no exeption. Practitioners of many kinds of alternate healing techniques have used his music to accompany their work. Tarshito records his albums in his home-built, solar powered studio, situated near his house in the Australian rainforest. There he is free to create whenever he is in-spired, surrounded by the beauty and power of nature.