Three Concerts at OpenMind Festival

This past week, I had the pleasure of accompanying three different artists over the course of three days at the OpenMind Festival in La Patrie, Quebec. OpenMind Festival is a music festival, bringing people together in a celebration of diversity and sound ecological practices. The festival takes place every two years, and in a different location that is always very isolated (no cell phone coverage this year!) and very beautiful. You may remember my performance with Uwe Neumann from the last OpenMind Festival, in 2011.

My first performance at this year's festival was an early evening concert with sitarist Uwe Neumann. I accompanied him in raag Kirwani, in Sitarkhani, followed by another raag in Rupak, the name of which has slipped my mind, and lastly, a Bhairavi in Teentaal. We concluded with Uwe's customary finale - an improvised piece on sansa.

A view of the stage and surrounding stunning views!

Next was a noon concert, accompanying santoor player Jonathan Voyer. Our outdoor performance was quickly rained out (Jonathan didn't even get to finish his alap), even though Jonathan had specifically decided NOT to play raag Megh (a monsoon raga, which would have been appropriate, considering the OpenMind theme of the day was water), and instead opted for Bhimpalasi. Well, raag Megh or not, the rain came down hard! The tech crew quickly scrambled to move us and all the equipment into ... how to explain ... an enormous, inflated white ball, with carpets and pillows laid out on the inside. It was a really nice, intimate setting for the music, but also incredibly hot! Jonathan wrapped up his alap, and we moved on to compositions in Rupak and Teentaal. It must have been 40 degrees (C) in there, no exaggeration. Nevertheless, we brought full energy (and lots of sweat!) to the performance, and the audience was extremely receptive.

Photo from soundcheck. No more photos from the outdoor stage, as it soon started to rain!

Inside the big inflated white ball. The stage was unfortunately placed behind an altar, as you can see here.

The ball!

Last, but not least, was a sitar performance with Toronto-based musician, Prosad. This was actually our first time meeting and playing together. Prosad has studied with musicians in both the Vilayat Khan style and Ali Akbar Khan style of playing, and so his approach was quite different from the Montreal-based musicians that I usually play with. It was great fun to follow and see where he might lead me. Lots of fun rhythmic interplay and intricate tihais!

Again, in the ball, and hidden behind the altar!

Overall, a great three days of tabla accompaniment! Thanks to Caroline Tabah for most of the photos, aside from the few cellphone shots. :)

Tribute to Pandit Ravi Shankar

This past April 27, I took part in a concert in honour of the late Pandit Ravi Shankar, organized by Hindustani vocalist Vinay Bhide, in Ottawa. The evening concert took place at the Centrepointe Studio Theatre in Ottawa. The concert included performances by vocalist Vinay Bhide, Aditya Verma (sarod; Montreal), Bageshree Vaze (kathak dance; Toronto), Jonathan Voyer (santoor; Montreal), and Tara Krishnan (Bharatanatyam dance), and Kiran Morarji (Toronto) and myself on tabla.

I accompanied Jonathan Voyer for his set, as well as Vinay Bhide for his, followed by a concluding piece with the Ottawa Ensemble, joined by some of the other artists.

It was a beautiful evening, and it was a pleasure to have participated. I really enjoy these types of concerts, where many artists get together and collaborate. Pt. Ravi Shankar was such an important artist of our time, having influenced and inspired so many musicians around the world.

Accompanying santoor player, Jonathan Voyer

Accompanying vocalist Vinay Bhide, with his son Udit on harmonium.

All artists on stage for the final bhajan, composed by Pt. Ravi Shankar.

Thank you to Caroline Tabah for the photos!

Two Gurus in Two Weeks

The Indian classical music scene in Montreal seems to be growing of late. Not that we necessarily have more locals professionally playing Indian music, but that more and more artists are passing through Montreal to perform. This fall, it seems that there is a concert every week or two! The first couple of weeks of October were quite intense, as in the first week, my friend Jonathan Voyer hosted his santoor Guru, Pandit Satish Vyas, and the week after, Uwe Neumann's Guru, Sri Partha Bose came to visit.

In both cases, I was fortunate to be their accompanist for both their private teaching, and in concert!

On October 4, I organized a workshop for Pt. Satish Vyas (himself a senior disciple of the legendary Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma) at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. It was an introductory workshop on santoor and the North Indian classical music traditions.

The following day, I accompanied both Satishji and Jonathan for a concert at Tanna Schulich Hall, appropriately named Parampara, which was presented under the banner of Jonathan's organisation, Samskara. Tanna Hall has a perfect acoustic for Indian classical music, and while we did amplify a bit, the audio staff and equipment are of such quality, that we could not feel that we were being amplified. Crystal-clear sound!

Accompanying Jonathan Voyer.

Parampara - Guru and Shishya!

Accompanying Pandit Satish Vyas.

Dan Blanchard (also a disciple of Pt. Satish Vyas, who kindly MCed for us in English), Satishji, and Jonathan.

The next week, I had the great fortune to accompany sitarist Partha Bose in concerts at H-OM Yoga and Equilibrium Yoga on October 12 and 13 respectively. It was quite amazing to perform in such intimate settings with an artist of this calibre, who could just have easily filled a large concert hall. I considered myself privileged to have the best seat in the house, right next to Parthaji, where I could hear all the wonderful nuances of his beautiful alaps.

Accompanying Sri Partha Bose at Equilibrium Yoga.

Aha!

It was a great pleasure, and a great learning experience. I'm very much looking forward to both of their next visits to Montreal!

Thank you to Caroline Tabah for the photos!

Festival du Monde Arabe de Montréal

This past October 27, santoor player Jonathan Voyer and I performed a free concert for the Festival du Monde Arabe, at the Espace Georges-Emile-Lapalme of Place des Arts. The festival titled our concert Treasures of Indian Music, which was quite the compliment! The concert was very well attended, but because it was in an open, public space, it was really noisy. It was actually quite challenging to play in such a situation, but we did enjoy ourselves and the audience also seemed to enjoy very much!

PARAMPARA with Pandit Satish Vyas, October 5

This coming October 5, I will have the pleasure of accompanying my friend Jonathan Voyer's Guruji, Pandit Satish Vyas, in concert at Tanna Schulich Hall. This concert promises to be a truly special occasion, with both Satishji and Jonathan performing. A santoor festival! :)

Truly an event not to be missed for Indian music lovers in Montreal. You can keep up to date with the concert at its Facebook event page.

Friday, October 5, 2012 at 7:30pm
Tanna Schulich Recital Hall
Schulich School of Music of McGill University
555 Sherbrooke West, Montreal

Admission: 35$, 20$, 16$ (students)
Reservations: 514-398-4547

Here is a small clip to whet your appetite!

New Video from the TAAL Documentary Film Project

Dear friends,

Here is a new video clip from filmmaker Caroline Tabah's TAAL - The Rhythm of Life documentary film project fundraiser. I hope you enjoy it! Please visit the TAAL fundraising campaign website. The project truly needs your help in order to succeed, so please do consider making a contribution. Every bit helps enormously!


This is taken from a recent performance of Raag Janasammohini with santoor player, Jonathan Voyer at Space Gathering 2012. You may remember seeing the psychedelic photos a few posts ago.

Space Gathering with Jonathan Voyer

This past July, santoor player Jonathan Voyer and I performed at the Space Gathering, at Ste-Agathe-de-Lotbinière, which is not too far from Victoriaville. Space Gathering is a festival that takes place out in the country, in a beautiful natural setting. Most people camp out for the three days, but we were only able to stay for the day. Most of the performances are DJs and dance music bands, but Space Gathering also has a long tradition of Indian classical music performances at the 'Temple' stage, which was located right next to a sparking river.

I have to admit that while I have seen numerous statues or pictures of Ganeshji playing all kinds of musical instruments, I have never seen him with a turntable before!

We had an amazing time, playing to a captive audience as the sun was setting.

Thanks to Caroline Tabah for the photos! (Many more photos available on my Facebook page!)

A Busy Fall Season with Santoor Player Jonathan Voyer

This past fall was a really busy time, playing with santoor player Jonathan Voyer. We started the fall with a concert at McGill at the end of September, which I wrote about in a blog post previously. A short excerpt of the performance is now available on YouTube:

Shortly after that, we collaborated with dancer Julie Beaulieu for her choreography Mousson la nuit. Produced by Samskara, Mousson la nuit was presented as part of Tangente Danse's season at Usine-C. Choreographed and danced by Julie Beaulieu, Mousson la nuit depicts Raag Megh, a monsoon raga, coming to life, incarnated through the dancer. Jonathan and I provided the music. This time, however, Jonathan performed as both a santoor player and as a vocalist! The music is traditional, North Indian classical music, with alap (both sung and on santoor), a vocal bandish in Jhaptaal, followed by instrumental gats in Jhaptaal and Teentaal. The dance aspect is contemporary, but with inspiration from the Bharata Natyam tradition.

The four shows were very well attended, and we are looking forward to performing Mousson again in the future.

The week after, Jonathan and I headed to Quebec City for performances at Café Babylone and the Grand Théâtre du Québec.

The next week was the opening of the exhibition Couleurs de l'Inde at the Musée Pointe-à-Callière in Old Montreal. Couleurs de l'Inde is an exhibition of photos by French photographer Suzanne Held. Our CD, Shanta, is the official soundtrack for the exhibition, which runs until April 22.

Later on, in early December, we played at the museum for their annual fundraiser dinner.

Photo by Alain Vandal

With Francine Lelièvre, General Director of the Musée Pointe-à-Callière, and Jonathan Voyer.
Photo by Alain Vandal

What a great fall season it was! We are looking forward to our next concert on February 4, at Timpano-Percussion!

Santoor and tabla recital at McGill University

This past September 30, I accompanied santoor player Jonathan Voyer for a recital at Tanna Schulich Hall at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal. The concert was part of the Journées de la culture (Culture days) and also was in celebration of UNESCO International Music Day, which was interestingly started by the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin (himself a great lover of Indian classical music, and longtime collaborator of Pandit Ravi Shankar).

Jonathan chose to play Raag Charukeshi, which is one of my favourites on santoor (recommended listening: Pandit Shivkumar Sharma's recording of Charukeshi, with Pt. Kishan Maharaj, on the album Sympatico). The raag just seems to work so well on santoor, and creates a very special mood. Jonathan played an alap, followed by a gat in vilambit jhaptaal, madhya teentaal, and then drut teentaal.

We really had a great performance. A great hall, great audience, and great mood. This was one of those performances that just felt right. The hall was almost completely full to capacity and the audience was very enthusiastic. We even got some audible appreciation at times during the drut, which is very rare here in Montreal.

Our CD, Shanta, can be purchased from us directly, or online via iTunes and CDBaby.

2nd Global Conference on World Religions

This past September 7, Jonathan Voyer and I had the honour to perform for the Second Global Conference on World Religions, held at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal. The list of guest speakers was quite impressive. The keynote speaker was his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and he was joined by world-famous author Deepak Chopra, Professors Tariq Ramadan, Robert Thurman, Steven T. Katz and Gregory Baum.

Unfortunately, we didn't meet any of these distinguished people, but we were very happy to share our music with the very receptive attendees!

New CD release - Shanta

Wow, I can't believe that I haven't posted about this yet... This past fall, santoor player Jonathan Voyer and I released our first CD together, and my first recording of Indian classical music! - Shanta - a musical expression of peace.

The recording is a full performance of Raag Yaman, beautifully interpreted by Jonathan through Alap, Vilambit Rupaktaal, Madhyalaya Teentaal, and concluding with Drut Teentaal.

The CD is dedicated to our respective gurus of Indian music - santoor maestro Pandit Satish Vyas, vocalist Pandit Somanath Mardur, and tabla master Pandit Sharda Sahai.

The CD is available to purchase through CDBaby, iTunes, and of course, directly from Jonathan and myself. We are already discussing plans for a second album, perhaps to be recorded this spring!

I thought I should also mention that Jonathan has a fabulous new website - www.samskara.ca.

Tweet

Montreal Constellation

This past November 27, I was extremely honoured to have been invited to peform as part of the Kabir Cultural Centre's Montreal Constellation concert. For this special event, they invited all the local practitioners of Hindustani classical music to collaborate in an evening performance.

Each artist presented one raga (sorry that I don't recall all the raags performed). First to perform was santoor player Jonathan Voyer, accompanied by myself on tabla. Jonathan performed Raag Yaman in Alap, Rupaktaal, and Drut Teentaal. Next, sitarist Uwe Neumann, accompanied by Subir Dev on tabla, followed by sarodiya Aditya Verma, accompanied by myself. For the finale, all artists performed together on stage in Raag Kirwani - Alap, Vilambit Teentaal and Drut Teentaal.

It was truly a magical evening, and it was an honour to perform with such talented artists. It was a real coming-together of the local Indian music scene. This was also my first time performing with another tabla player in a traditional setting. Subir is a wonderful tabla artist, and it was a pure pleasure to perform together. I sincerely hope that we will be able to have other such occasions to perform together in the future.

For those of you who know the local scene, a major absence was felt, as bansuri player Catherine Potter was unable to participate due to her ill health. She passed away 6 days later. I will devote an entire post to Catherine in my next blog posting. Needless to say, her passing created waves across the entire Canadian music landscape, touching people from coast to coast.

All photos by Arif Khan of the Kabir Cultural Centre.

Live at Zazen with Jonathan Voyer

This past Saturday, I performed with santoor player Jonathan Voyer, as part of the Zazen Live series. My aim with this series is to promote Indian classical music in an intimate setting. All performances are acoustic.

Jonathan Voyer is a disciple of santoor maestro, Pandit Satish Vyas. We opened with Raag Dhani - first an alap, then a gat jhaptaal (10-beat cycle), followed by a gat in drut teentaal (16-beat cycle).

After a short intermission (ie: samosa break), we continued with Raag Yaman - alap, gat in rupaktaal (7-beat cycle), and ending with a gats in madhya and drut teentaal.

I was really happy with the audience turnout for this concert - we were completely sold out. As always, the audience was really attentive. Jonathan performed many interesting (and challenging) rhythmic variations, with much depth and nuance. Looking forward to future performances together!

A big thanks to Jennifer at Zazen, for her continued support of Indian classical music and dance.