COMPANY PROFILE

Desert Rose Music was founded in 1999 and has since produced 7 highly successful CD's within the healing, meditation and world music genres. They are currently the leading producers and performers of this music genre in South Africa.

OUR MUSIC COMPOSER

Lynne Holmes-Ganief, was introduced to music and arts at a very early age.

Lynne showed a natural love for the piano and at the age of 13 she was chosen by the National Orchestra to perform a solo piano concerto for SABC. During her school career she won many awards for excellence in Classical Piano, including a merit award from Unisa for the highest examination results. In 1989 she graduated with distinction and a standing ovation under the world renowned Professor Lamar Crowson at the University of Cape Town.

After getting married and deciding not to pursue a performing career, Lynne turned inward to become a composer, studying part time with professors, Zeidl-Rudolph, Klaztow and Rajner. Her first World Music tracks were discovered by London based company, Passion Music who immediately recognised her exceptional musical ability as an international writer, composer and producer of World Music and New World Music. Her first album, Sands of Time was successfully released from London internationally in 2000.

From 2001 to 2005 she used her music composing talents to produce music for various international television ads, live events, film and television including the MNET series, Known Gods, the South African made film, Othello and the Pendoring Awards. During this time she also produced her first 2 relaxation world music albums, i.e. Deep Relaxation Music Vol. 1 and Heavenly Music. She successfully released them on 16 December 2005. Her Deep Relaxation Music album has since become one of the most preferred albums within the Health Spa Industry in South Africa.

In 2005 she met her business partner and now lead vocalist for Desert Rose, Yusuf Ganief. Together they formalised the business and produced their first album, Spirit of Africa, under the Desert Rose Music lable in October 2007. The album was hailed as a masterpiece of African Meditation music and subsequently endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Cape Town Tourism for its musical excellence within an African context. The album features some of the most recognised traditional and indigenous artists in South Africa and Africa including Pops Mohamed, Dizu Plaatjies, and Pretty Yende.

In 2007 she discovered Yusufs unique vocal talents and produced her first New World Music album called The Prayer, introducing Yusuf as a Sufi vocalist and combining ancient Sufi and Arabic chants with classical world music. This album proved to be groundbreaking as it was chosen as Critics Choice in June 2008 after its release in May 2008.The album was endorsed by the International Peace University of South Africa and the first track, Remembrance, became a hit within the local Cape Town community as well as in Turkey.

In November 2008 she produced Hymn of the Soul as a follow up album to her highly successful Deep Relaxation Music Vol. 1 In a short space of time this album has become a best seller within the meditation and health spa industries in South Africa.

In October 2008, based on the success of her album, The Prayer, the group was invited to perform live to an audience of 5000 people at the local District 6 Homecoming Festival. Since then Lynne has produced music for live performances and in December 2008 the group Desert Rose performed their first Awakening Concert. The unique concept and exceptional musical delivery of the Awakening Concert proved to be successful wherever it was performed and it subsequently led to Desert Rose being the leading performers of healing and universal spiritual music in South Africa.