David Hykes (1953 - ) is a musician, composer, author, experimental filmmaker and meditation teacher and director of the Harmonic Choir. He was born Taos, New Mexico and currently resides in France. The Harmonic Chant, developed by Hykes is based upon the traditional world music of Tuva, Mongolia. Tibet and the medieval Christian Gregorian chant form. Educated at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio where he studied with the avant-guard or experimental filmmaker Tony Conrad. He also received an M.F.A. from Columbia University in New York. He began experimenting with harmonic or overtone singing in 1974. He founded the Harmonic Choir in 1975 and later incorporated the group in New York as a not-for-profit arts organization called the Harmonic Arts Society Inc. on September 11, 1981.
Hykes has collaborated twice with the English theater and film director Peter Brook, contributing film music for Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979) and training Brook's French Mahabharata cast. Hykes has also contributed music to the films Dead Poets Society, Ghost, and Baraka, among others.
He has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships for his work, notably from: UNESCO's Fund for the Promotion of Culture, several grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (USA), and years of support from the New York State Council on the Arts.
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