BARDO (which is the Tibetan word for “transitional state” or “portal”) was produced by Christopher Bono; the orchestral sessions were co-produced with Grammy Award-winner Adam Abeshouse. The album was mixed by Bono in collaboration with Grammy Award-winning engineer Silas Brown and mastered by Scott Hull at Masterdisk. The phenomenal young conductor Teddy Abrams (currently assistant conductor to Leonard Slatkin with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra) led an orchestra comprising members of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Prague Philharmonic at legendary Dvorák Hall. Additional ambient instruments and guitars were recorded at The Great Togetherness Hall at Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s Blue Cliff Monestary, with percussion and vocals recorded at Bono’s Apollo 37 studio, both in upstate New York.

BARDO was originally a site-specific work commissioned by Sympho Concerts and was premiered to a capacity crowd at the iconic Ann Hamilton Tower in Geyserville, CA in June 2012. Performers and audience members were immersed in the sonic experience by being positioned along the length of the entire structure on double-helix interior staircases.

This vertical plane was taken into consideration for the compositional process and was later translated onto a horizontal level for the larger orchestral recording.

The second half of the album chronicles the “in-between” experience as described in the ancient Tibetan Book of the Dead. In “Bardo III: Enter The Void” the music guides the Fool through a series of difficult psychological experiences leading to a liberated state, where a wondrous, spinning tunnel of visual and sonic phenomenon inspires ascension. From a place of infinite possibility, “Bardo IV: Clouds Blooming at the Thought of Union” moves the Fool through what the Tibetans call the Sidpa Bardo, or the Bardo of transmigration. In this final Bardo, the Fool arrives at the door to his next embodied life, where he fulfills the karmic destiny created by the loving embrace of his future parents. Each movement is preluded by ambient portals that act as passageways to the varying environments of each movement.