Kathak in Marlboro, Vermont

From March 5 through 7, I was in residence at Marlboro College (Marlboro, Vermont), along with cellist Jake Charkey and kathak dancer Sudeshna Maulik. We were invited to teach and perform for the faculties of music and dance by Prof. Stan Charkey.

On March 5, Jake and I gave an Indian music workshop for Prof. Charkey's world music class. The class had previously learned a bit about Carnatic music, so we started by talking about some of the similarities and differences between Carnatic (South Indian) and Hindustani (North Indian) classical music. We then got into a discussion of the tabla and taal, and the cello and raag. Jake demonstrated a few different ragas, and I had the class clapping teentaal and rupaktaal. I performed a short solo in rupak, and demonstrated a few tihais.

Later that day, Jake and I accompanied Sudeshna for her dance workshop. There was quite a large turnout, mostly made up of ballet and contemporary dancers. Sudeshna pushed the students hard and they learned quite a lot in the 90 minutes we had together!

On March 6, Jake and I gave some private lessons to interested students. One of the students had previously been to Benares and studied tabla for a few weeks there.

On March 7, we performed in concert for a very enthusiastic audience. First, Jake performed cello solo, opening with a piece in Raag Durga. Alap and gat in jhaptaal (10 beats). I then performed tabla solo in teentaal, vilambit and madhya. After a short pause, we continued with the kathak dance segment, accompanying Sudeshna through vilambit, madhya, and drut teentaal. As always, Sudeshna danced with great energy, precision, and flair and the audience responded with much applause throughout the performance.

Many thanks to the Charkey family for hosting us during our residency. We stayed at their place in Brattleboro. Brattleboro is a friendly, picturesque town, with a large artist community. I hope to return again in the near future!

Attar Project CD Launch

The last week of February was a busy time for me. 4 concerts and 2 workshops in four days! These activities were centered around the launch of the Attar Project's third CD, The Road Ahead.

The Attar Project is the project of violinist Parmela Attariwala. "Initially conceived as a vehicle to integrate the eclectic strands of Attariwala’s own musical background, the Attar Project engages artists across musical genres and artistic practices in virtuosic collaborations that maintain the essence of each while challenging the boundaries between them. Neither a fixed ensemble nor an “ad hoc” one, the Attar Project has unfolded as a series of dedicated partnerships, resulting in a body of work that, while beyond common definition, unfailingly awakens the eye and ear." This album features new music for violin and tabla by Canadian composers.

the Attar Project - The Road Ahead

Parmela Attariwala, violin and viola

Shawn Mativetsky, tabla and percussion

Oracle, by Paul Frehner

Sudoku, by Andrew Staniland

The Road Ahead... is Longer than the Trail Left Behind, by Nicole Rampersaud

The Melody of Rhythm, by Meiro Stamm

Never the Twain Shall Meet, by Christien Ledroit

The first of the CD launch activities took place at the Musideum in Toronto on February 24. This is a music / instrument store with an eclectic collection of instruments on display and for sale. A really fascinating place! They had a wide array of percussion, string instruments, winds, and electronic instruments from around the world. They even had an old glass harmonica on display. We performed a few selections from the new CD to a small, but appreciative audience.

Performing at the Musideum, Toronto.

Chatting with composer Meiro Stamm.

The Attar Project at the Musideum.

The next day, February 25, Parmela and I were on a train to London (Ontario) to give workshops at the University of Western Ontario. I gave a tabla workshop for the percussion students, and another for the composition students, while Parmela gave a workshop on improvisation. The next day, we performed for the UWO noon-hour concert series. Many thanks to composer Paul Frehner for inviting us. It was a great couple of days. I only wish that I had more time to stay and see more of "the other" London.

A couple of hours later, we were back on a train for another performance that same evening at Toronto's C'est What. C'est What is not our usual type of venue - it's a microbrewery pub. But, they have a music series and are trying to branch out into other, more adventurous styles of music. It was fun to be able to watch the Olympic women's gold medal curling match (though Canada lost, and got silver) just before the performance.

Performing at C'est What, Toronto.

The last of the Toronto CD launch concerts was at the Tranzac. I hadn't heard of this place before, but it seems to be a big part of the local music scene. They have a few rooms, booked all day long, with musical performances representing practically every genre imaginable. We played in a smaller room, up close and personal with the audience. We got a really enthusiastic response! Maybe it was the Tranzac vibe, or the fact that the Tranzac audiences are very open in their musical tastes.

Performing at the Tranzac, Toronto.

In all of the performances, we played selections from the new CD, plus Robert Rosen's now classic LA, and a tabla solo in rupak taal (7 beats). I have typically chosen to perform tabla solo in teentaal (16 beats), but I decided that it was time for a change! I'm really liking the feel of rupak for solos, and will surely continue to explore this further.

All in all, a great week, and a great way to launch the new CD! The CD should soon be available on CDBaby, iTunes, etc. It's also available directly from Parmela or myself, and independent music stores in Toronto.

Benares Chronicles, Part 3 - The United Nations of Indian Classical Music

While I was in Benares, I had asked Shen if he had any performances coming up; unfortunately, he had none booked at the time. It would have been great to see him perform. Well, Shen had a surprise up his sleeve for me. He spoke with the folks at Kashika Music Ashram and organised a performance. He was to accompany Japanese sitarist, Yasuhiro Minamizawa... AND, to my surprise... I was to play tabla solo.

The final lineup was made up of Indian classical musicians from all around the world, and so Shen had the great idea to call this concert the United Nations of Indian Classical Music. Very appropriate, and I hope that this concept will continue in the years to come.

KASHIKA MUSIC ASHRAM

presents

United Nations of Indian Classical Music

Kashika Music Hall

Near R.B. Katra Post Office

Bengali Tola Lane

Monday, 21st December, 2009 at 7pm

ARTISTS:

Yuki Taniguchi (Japan - disciple of Pt. Ritwik Sannyal) - SANSKRIT MANTRA

Shawn Mativetsky (Canada - disciple of Pt. Sharda Sahai) - TABLA SOLO

with Aneesh Mishra (India - disciple of Pt. Kanhaiyalal Mishra) - SARANGI

Yasuhiro Minamizawa (Japan - disciple of Smt. Shrabani Biswas) - SITAR

with Shen Flindell (Australia - disciple of Pt. Ashutosh Bhattacharya) - TABLA

Australia, Canada, Japan, and India ... not a bad start for the United Nations of Indian Classical Music! A few days before the performance, we all met at Kashika Music House to give press interviews. Here we are (minus Aneesh), jamming for the cameras.

When the day of the performance came around, I really had no idea how many people would show up. The Kashika Music Hall is a small, intimate performance space. The musicians perform acoustically, with no amplification, and we are extremely close to the audience. The capacity of the space is maybe 40 people; the feeling is like a house concert. At around 6:50, the hall was quite empty, but by 7:00, it was completely full, and by 7:15 all the doors were opened and people were filling the street outside!

First to perform was Yuki, singing Sanskrit mantras. Her background is in yoga and dhrupad, and she has found a great way to combine the two, in the form of naad yoga. Her voice was very calm and composed, and set the mood for the other performances to come. The mantras allowed us to focus on the musical performance taking place, and leave behind the various sounds of the nearby lane.

Next, I performed tabla solo. Opening with a Ganesh vandana, I followed with vilambit and madhya teentaal. Aneesh played beautifully; there is really nothing quite like the sound of sarangi. The audience was very kind and appreciative, and I was surrounded by the now-familiar faces of Debabrata-ji, Shen, Yuki, Hiro, Rob, Jay, Nick (another person that I have known online for a long time, but had never met before), Ghirau (Amarnathjee's sitar-playing son, who I had the pleasure of practicing with) and guru-bhais Jeff and Anjan, and that really motivated me. After a few minutes of playing, Pt. Pooran Maharaj arrived. When Shen and I had visited him a few days prior (see previous blog post), we invited him to our performance and he promised to come; well, he did! Let's just say that I felt some additional pressure at this point (!!!), but he was so encouraging and kind to me during the performance, that I really felt great and highly motivated while I was playing. What an experience!

(A small note about the Benares tabla lineage: Pt. Pooran Maharaj, aside from being the son of the late Pt. Kishan Maharaj, is a disciple of Pt. Kanthe Maharaj, making him guru-bhai with Gurujee (Pt. Sharda Sahai). Shen's guru, Ashu Babu was also a disciple of Pt. Kanthe Maharaj.)

Last on the program was Hiro's sitar performance, accompanied by Shen. Finally, I would get to see Shen perform. I really enjoyed Hiro's alap - it was very sensitive and subtle, with lots of nuance in the meends. When Hiro introduced the alap, Shen played an uthaan that I would describe as being 'deep'. His time-feel is right on, and his baya playing is very smooth and melodic; a very sweet sound overall. It was obvious that Hiro and Shen enjoy playing together, as they would often play off each other, and I really enjoyed watching Hiro's tihai challenges. :)

The United Nations of Indian Classical Music, right after the performance.

A great experience, and a perfect ending to my trip to Benares. Many thanks to Shen for organizing this concert. He opened the concert by saying to everyone that he had put together this concert just for me. Wow! I hope that we can find other occasions to musically come together again.

You can read Shen's blog post on the same subject, at his blog, Tabla in Hand.

Crossroads

This past June 12 and 13, I had the pleasure of participating in the Crossroads project at the Gesu in Montreal. It was a dance performance, combining Kathak and Odissi with live music (though at times, the dancers used pre-recorded music).

Sudeshna Maulik, kathak dancer, began her training in Kolkatta under Pt. Chitresh Das, and then went on to study at Bharatiya Kala Kendra, and at the National Kathak Institute with Pt. Birju Maharaj. Based in Windsor, Ontario, Odissi

dancer Enakshi Sinha studied with Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra and Smt. Sharmila Biswas.

The programme began with Stree Shakti, an evocation of the eternal female creative force, through Kathak and Odissi dance. Enakshi Sinha (Odissi) and Sudeshna Maulik (Kathak) performed their own choreography, with pre-recorded music that they developed in India.

Performing with Jake Charkey, cello. Photo by Ulysse Lemerise-Bouchard.

This was followed by Hands and Feet, which was the traditional Kathak item, which Sudeshna danced solo. Jake Charkey played nagma on cello, and I played tabla. We opened with the very famous Ganesh vandana (bol paran), followed by thaat, amad, and then numerous compositions (tukras, parans, gat nikas, etc.) in vilambit, madhya, and drut. The item ended with a brief sawal-jawab between Sudeshna and myself. You might notice from the photo that I have two dahinas. I played on a low-C in the vilambit and madhya sections for a pakhawaj-like sound, and used a standard C for the drut section.

Myself and Jake Charkey accompanying Sudeshna Maulik's kathak performance. Photo by Ulysse Lemerise-Bouchard.

The next item was Glimpses, an Odissi solo that Enakshi Sinha choreographed and performed, with pre-recorded music. This was then followed by Footprints of Rhythm, an Odissi-Kathak duet, with pre-recorded music and drumset, which I played live. The idea was to combine traditional music of both Odissi and Kathak with another, non-traditional element. So, tabla, pakhawaj, and drumset. Though I am not a big fan of playing along to a pre-recorded track, it was fun to play drumset from a tabla perspective, and to be able to interact with both dancers in their respective idioms.

Jake then performed a short solo; a rendition of a song by Tagore. This created a bridge to the last piece, Tagore Revisited, which is a collection of three choreographies, again combining Kathak and Odissi dance, with pre-recorded music.

Of course, I would prefer to have more live music and less pre-recorded music, but in the dance world, this is very common. Sometimes, choreographies are attached to pre-set structures, and it is often cost-prohibitive to hire enough musicians to accurately reproduce the recorded music. In this case, we would have needed to add a sitarist and vocalist, and perhaps a keyboard player as well.

From left to right: Jake Charkey (cello), Enakshi Sinha (Odissi dance), Sudeshna Maulik (Kathak dance), and myself. Photo by Ulysse Lemerise-Bouchard.

The performances were very well attended, and we all got some great comments from the audience. We are hoping to book future performances of Crossroads in the rest of Canada and perhaps even internationally. Sudeshna and Enakshi are both immensely talented, and it was a true pleasure to accompany them. I am very much looking forward to our future collaborations.

Symphonie du Sud-Ouest

From February to mid-April, I was involved in a very interesting project, the Symphonie du Sud-Ouest. This series of workshops on musical creativity and improvisation was initiated by guitarist/composer, Tim Brady. The project involved 20 musicians from the community at large; more specifically, those living in the south-west borough of the city of Montreal. Tim Brady, saxophonist Jean-Marc Bouchard (from the Quasar saxophone quartet), and myself met with the group every Wednesday night over the course of two months.

The participants were of mixed age and background, ranging from 16 years old to 70 years old, and with varying amounts of musical experience. Instrumentation included voice, piano, guitar, bass, electronic drumset, recorder, clarinet, and saxophone. My setup included tabla (of course!), darbouka, a couple of cymbals, and a milltone drum.

Each week, we would begin with a short presentation on a musical style or compositional technique. Topics included melody, harmony, orchestration, register/dynamics/density, improvisation, composition, theme-and-variation, Indian music (of course!), etc. Then, we would break off into our three groups, led by Tim (guitar and voice), Jean-Marc (winds), and myself (percussion). My group, though loosely labelled the percussion group, actually included African percussion, electronic drumset, slam poetry / vocal sound effects, piano, and my setup that I mentioned earlier.

Over the course of seven workshops, we worked on creating our symphony for a performance at the Maison de la culture Marie Ugay on April 15. The final structure was:

I - Group improvisation, directed by Tim

II - Guitar / voice group soli

III - Wind group soli

IV - Percussion group soli

V - Group "comprovisation", composed/directed by Tim

It was fun to see everyone push their musical boundaries far past their pre-conceived notions of music and music-making. The concert was well attended, and enthusiastically received. We are currently planning a second edition of the workshop, which should begin sometime in mid-June! If you are a resident of the Sud-Ouest borough of Montreal and would like to participate in the second edition of the Symphone du Sud-Ouest, please contact the Centre Culturel Georges-Vanier.

Upcoming performances

I thought I should mention some upcoming performances of my own, and others in the area. 

On May 2, Crudessence, Montreal's top "living food" restaurant is putting on a party called Bollywood Express. There will be a bollywood dance demonstration, and a DJ who will play all your favourite Bollywood tracks, so you can dance the night away. But before everyone gets down, Jake Charkey and I will open the evening with some North Indian classical music for tabla and cello. Yes, cello! How to explain it? It's just like Indian violin, but lower! :)

May 2, 2009 at 8:00pm

Espace Reunion, 6600 rue Hutchison

Montreal, Qc

Tickets cost 15$ in advance, 20$ at the door.

If you are in the Ottawa area, the Ragamala Association of Ottawa-Carleton is presenting a concert with sitarist Ustad Shahid Parvez, accompanied by Subhajyoti Guha on tabla. May 2 at 7:30pm. Kailash Mital Theatre, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario. Tickets are 20$ to 100$.

Later in the month of May, the Kabir Cultural Centre is presenting a semi-classical vocal concert with Shafkat Ali Khan, from Pakistan. He will be accompanied by Pandit Ramesh Mishra on sarangi. The concert is on May 16 at 7:30pm. DB Clarke Theatre, 1455 de Maisonneuve West, Montreal, Qc. Tickets are 15$-50$. Unfortunately, I will be missing this performance, as I will be in London, UK at the time, but I will fortunately be seeing Ramesh-ji in performance with Shri Sanju Sahai on May 9 at the South Bank Centre! Ramesh-ji is an incredible sarangi player, and I would highly reccomend attending whichever performance you are able to! :)

Mark June 12 and 13 in your calendars for Sudeshna Maulik's Crossroads project, which will take place at the Salle Gesu in Montreal. This will be a full performance of kathak and odissi dance, with Jake Charkey on cello and myself on tabla.

New releases

A couple of recordings that I worked on last fall have just recently been released. These aren't groups that I regularly perform with, but they were looking for some Indian flavour for specific tracks on their albums.

The first recording is with La Nef, a group whose music is extremely varied and defies categorization. Generally speaking, they perform both early music and world music. This recording, as the title suggests, is of music inspired by desert cultures. I perform santoor (yes!) on the second track, Rub al Khali. The other performers on the track are the very talented Pierre Hamon on bansuri, Carlo Rizzo and Patrick Graham on frame drums, and Andrew Wells-Oberegger on oud. Pierre and Carlo had flown in from France for this occasion. The rest of the CD is extremely varied, with voice, various flutes, numerous frame drums and percussion instruments, oud, saz, guembri, and jaw harp.

The other recording that has recently been released is francophone pop artist Yann Perreau's Un serpent sous les fleurs. Having recently returned from India, Yann wanted some tabla on his new record. I perform on the track, Le marcheur rapide.

Future releases in 2009 include a couple of guest tracks on Marie Saintonge's upcoming funky-electronic-world CD (previews can be heard on MySpace), a compilation with slam-poet-singer Mathieu Lippé and the soundtrack for a National Film Board of Canada short film.

That's all for now! More tabla-news coming soon.

A Quick Update on Recent Activities

Things have been really busy these past several weeks with many great projects. Here is a quick rundown of what's been going on.

First, in January, I performed tabla solo for the Abhilasha Project's fundraiser concert. In February, another fundraiser concert - this time, for the Montreal Heart of the City Piano Program, and a performance of Payton MacDonald's marimba and tabla duo, Jugalbandi, with marimbist Catherine Meunier. We also recorded some music by composer Luigi Allemano for an upcoming National Film Board short film.

Performing Jugalbandi with Catherine Meunier

March included a recording and performance with Francophone singer/poet Mathieu Lippé in Quebec City, a jazz performance with pianist John Roney, and Bhumi Pranam, a Bharat Natyam performance with Ginette Dion's Sattvika Danse.

My setup for accompanying John Roney included tabla (3 dahinas),

shakers, and a variety of Sabian cymbals that I played with both hands and sticks.

(Special thanks to Ji for the photo!)

Coming next are performances with contemporary violinist Parmela Attariwala in Toronto, and pop singer Yann Perreau's album launch in Montreal.