For nearly a decade, Michael Dunn has led kirtan meditations at the world-famed Lake Shrine meditation center founded by the great world-teacher Paramahansa Yogananda in Pacific Palisades, California. Trained as an actor at New York’s famed Juilliard Theatre Center, where he studied alongside such stars-to-be as Kevin Spacey and Val Kilmer, Michael enjoyed an award-winning career in the theatre in his native Chicago, in leading roles ranging from Shakespeare to rock musicals. In the early 1990’s, Michael heeded an inner need for a spiritual sabbatical and moved to Los Angeles, serving as a vegetarian cook at the Lake Shrine ashram of Self-Realization Fellowship, immersing himself in the ancient meditation techniques of India.

In the mid-1990’s, Michael returned to his creative endeavors as songwriting partner to producer/arranger Jim Price (whose work with Joe Cocker produced the classic "You Are So Beautiful"), and as a story analyst at CBS Entertainment (penning several screenplays of his own). Michael then returned to the Lake Shrine as Event Coordinator to produce concerts and spiritual celebrations, while delving more deeply into the art of chanting.

Michael’s beginnings as a kirtan artist can be traced to an earthquake.

The 1994 Los Angeles temblor left the Lake Shrine short of a kirtan leader (who chose to move to a more stable tectonic plate) and the head monk asked Michael to learn the harmonium. Years of leading chants and meditations followed, culminating in a pilgrimage to India for the Maha Kumbha Mela in 2001 (the largest gathering of human beings for a single purpose in the history of the planet). There he learned chants from the monks of Yogoda Satsanga Society at Dakshineswar, and at a Himalayan retreat in Dwarahat, near the cave of Mahavatar Babaji. This pilgrimage also planted the seeds of what would become the CD, "Adoration — Chants for Meditation."

A bumpy bus ride from New Delhi to Rhaniket in the Himalayan foothills was made more bearable for some thirty pilgrims by the music of Michael’s newly purchased harmonium, and by the joyous chanting of the Divine Name. Fellow pilgrim (and audio engineer) Tom Murphy was inspired to offer his services and his long-established L.A. studio (Track Record) to record an album of chants. The CD is now a reality, and is garnering ecstatic reviews. An inspiring new kirtan artist has arrived.