Toronto Area Performances

Hi everyone,

I'm just back from a week in the Toronto area. My first performance was at the University of Guelph. After giving a guest lecture for the Music of the Near and Far East class, Parmela Attariwala and I gave an afternoon performance of a traditional tabla solo and LA, a contemporary piece by Canadian composer Robert Rosen.

Parmela Attariwala and Shawn Mativetsky performing at the University of Guelph. (Photo by Phil Musgrave)

That evening, I accompanied the extremely talented soprano, Zorana Sadiq in her Music-Toronto vocal recital at the Jane Mallet Theatre in Toronto (St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts). We premiered a new arrangement of Shirish Korde's Songs of Ecstacy, which was a big hit with the audience. (No photos, unfortunately.)

The next evening, Parmela and I performed in the Canadian Music Centre's New Music in New Places series, which took place at the Hamilton GO Station. This is the main public transportation hub for Hamilton, serving both bus and train commuters. Many people were quite surprised to see a performance of new music during their evening commute home! Many people sat down for the entire performance, while others stood around for a few minutes, waiting for their bus or train to arrive. It was certainly different to perform in such a milieu, but it was quite a successful event. Many audience members had never seen tabla, or heard contemporary/new music before, and Parmela and I both received many comments from audience members after the performance.

Performing at the Hamilton GO Station

The concert began with Christien Ledroit's Trade Winds, a concerto for tabla with electronics (some of you may remember that I performed the orchestral version of this piece just a couple of weeks ago), followed by Vintal Bolia, an improv-based piece by Parmela and myself. Next, was Parmela's solo violin composition, Piercing Embrace and Payton MacDonald's Alap, for solo tabla. We concluded the programme with two duo pieces - the premiere of Christien Ledroit's Never the Twain Shall Meet, followed by Robert Rosen's LA.

Christien Ledroit, who composed two of the pieces on the program, and who also organised the concert for the CMC, put in an exceptional effort in putting this concert together. He designed the programs, newspaper advertisements, and even built the stage! On the evening of the concert, we rushed to put together the stage, run the wiring for the speakers and mixer, and do the sound-check. In the end, it all came together, and the concert ran very smoothly. Congratulations to Chris for a very successful event!

This week, I'll be premiering Payton MacDonald's Samsara, a new concerto for tabla and wind ensemble with the McGill Chamber Wind Orchestra. More news to come...


Regards,
Shawn

Summer Tabla Workshop with Pandit Sharda Sahai

Dear friends,

I am happy to announce that the 26th Annual Summer Tabla Workshop with Pandit Sharda Sahai will take place in Montreal from June 22 to July 5, 2008 at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University.

Pt. Sharda Sahai will also perform a solo recital on June 22.

More details to come soon. If you are interested in participating, please contact me so that I can add you to the list of attendees. Tuition will be $600 (Canadian funds), with a $100 discount for early registration (before May 1). Dorm rooms are available at $40 per night (breakfast is included).

Regards,
Shawn

Windsor Canadian Music Festival

Hi everyone,

I just got back from a week in Windsor, Ontario where I performed as part of the Windsor Canadian Music Festival. There were a number of talented composers in residence for the week, invited by composer and artistic advisor of the series Brent Lee: Geof Holbrook, Christien Ledroit, Christopher McNamara, Francois Rose, and Andrew Staniland. Normally, a new music festival like this wouldn't be likely to have any tabla-related content, but this time around, there were two tabla pieces in the festival, which I performed: Christien Ledroit's Trade Winds (tabla concerto with orchestra) and Elementalities (trio for flute, vibraphone, and tabla).

Rehearsing with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, directed by Maestro John Morris Russell

First was the performance of Trade Winds with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra on Friday, Feb. 1. Aside from a pair of tabla, the piece also calls for an octave of Sabian Resonating Bells, a C gong, and a wind gong.

Performing Trade Winds with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra

(Photo credit: Windsor Star; used with permission.)

Next was the performance of Elementalities as part of the University of Windsor faculty concert on Feb. 2, with Jaimie Wagner (flute) and Nick Papador (vibraphone). It was really enjoyable for me to perform the piece with these two talented musicians.

Performance of Elementalities.

Both concerts were recorded by CBC for future broadcast on The Signal. Unfortunately, I don't know the broadcast dates right now.

Congratulations to the WSO and the WCMF for an extremely successful and well organised event. It's great to see new Canadian music being promoted so well.

Canadian concert tour

Dear Friends,

February is going to be a busy month of concerts, with performances mainly in Ontario and Manitoba.

First, I’ll be performing as part of the Windsor Canadian Music Festival. CBC will be recording both concerts. For more information on the festival - http://www.windsorsymphony.com/season/wcmf.html

Friday, Feb. 1 at 7:30pm
Guest soloist with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra (dir. John Morris Russell) in a performance of Trade Winds, a concerto for tabla and string orchestra by Christien Ledroit.
Assumption University Chapel, Windsor, ON

Saturday, Feb. 2 at 7:30pm
Guest artist in the School of Music Faculty Concert in a performance of Elementalities, a chamber work for flute, vibraphone, and tabla by Christien Ledroit.
Jaimie Wagner, flute; Nicholas Papador, vibraphone.
Assumption University Chapel, Windsor, ON

Next, a short concert tour in the Toronto area.

Thursday, February 14 at 12pm
TABLEAUX – New Music for the Tabla of North India
With Parmela Attariwala, violin.
Traditional tabla solo and works by Payton MacDonald and Robert Rosen.
Thursdays at Noon Concert SeriesGoldschmidt Room, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON

Thursday, February 14 at 8pm
Accompanying soprano Zorana Sadiq, in a performance of Shirish Korde’s Songs of Ecstacy; Peter Tiefenbach, piano.
Music Toronto Vocal Recital
St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, Toronto, ON

Friday, February 15 at 8pm
TABLEAUX – New Music for the Tabla of North India
With Parmela Attariwala, violin.
Works by Christien Ledroit, Payton MacDonald, and Robert Rosen.
Tradewinds, presented by the Canadian Music Centre’s New Music in New Places series.
http://www.musiccentre.ca/nmi.cfm
Hamilton GO Centre, Hamilton, ON

Then, back to Montreal for a concert at McGill.

Thursday, February 21 at 8pm
Guest soloist with the McGill Wind Orchestra, guest conductor Vicky Shin.
Premiere of Samsara, a new tabla concerto by Payton MacDonald.
Pollack Hall, Montreal, QC

Then, last but not least, a short residency in Winnipeg, which will include guest lectures and workshops at the University of Manitoba.

Monday, February 25 at 8pm
TABLEAUX - New Music for the Tabla of North India
With Julie Lebel, harmonium and Laurel Ridd, flute
Groundswell New Music Series
Works by Paul Frehner, Bruno Paquet, Jim Hiscott, Patrick Saint-Denis, Nicole Lizée, and a traditional tabla solo.
Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall, Winnipeg, MB

Wednesday, February 27 at 8:00pm
Guest soloist with the Brandon University Percussion Ensemble, dir. Ben Reimer
Brandon University New Music Series
Payton MacDonald’s 2nd Concerto for Tabla and Percussion Quartet and Jugalbandi, duo for marimba and tabla.
Lorne Watson Hall, Brandon University, Brandon, MB

That's all for now. :)

Best regards,
Shawn

Surtaal, live at ZaZen

Hi everyone,

Happy new year! Unfortunately there hasn't been much to report for some time now. So, here's the first bit of news for this year - Nicholas and I had the pleasure of performing together again at Spa ZaZen. This location is truly ideal for Indian classical music concerts. It's all wood and stone, located in Old Montreal (Montreal's old historic neighbourhood). The building must be two hundred years old and the acoustic is really great.

Nicholas began with alap and jor in Raag Bhimpalasi, followed by a gat in Rupaktaal, which we then followed by a gat in Teentaal. After a short chai and samosa break, the concert resumed with Raag Darbari Kanada; alap and gat in Ektaal. What seems to have become tradition now, we ended with a short song in dadra.

Many thanks to Simon for his initiative in organising this concert, and Jen at ZaZen for hosting us again. I'm very much looking forward to the next time! My apologies for the blurry photos, but that's all we were able to get!

Coming soon:

Next week, I'm performing Christien Ledroit's Trade Winds, a concerto for tabla and string orchestra with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra as part of the Windsor Canadian Music Festival. Also, in March, the McGill Tabla Ensemble spring concert extravaganza. Stay tuned. :)

Lahara alternatives

Hi everyone,

For the tabla players and kathak dancers out there, we all know how hard it is to find good lahara accompaniment outside of India. Many of us practice with Nagma machines, or computers playing back MIDI files that loop melodies for us to practice with. Ideally, we'd all have sarangi players for hire, but we don't. As an alternative to the above methods, I recently came across these links on chandrakantha.com's Indian music forums:

Sarangi lahara: http://www.kritiarts.com/lehra.htm (available for purchase at 5$ per lahara)
Harmonium lahara: http://www.riyazmala.com/htm/lehera_sathi.htm (300 Rs per CD)

Both sites have free samples available for download.

And of course, there's always the free TaalPulse software - http://taalpulse.sourceforge.net/

Happy holidays!

Recent performances (November/December)

Hi everyone,

It seems like it has been a while since my last update. I've had a few concerts lately that I've neglected to post here, so here's a quick roundup (sorry, no photos!):

November 17 - ICM with Aditya Verma at the Freedom From Poverty Foundation Fundraiser
On November 17, I was fortunate to perform with the extremely talented sarod player, Aditya Verma, at the Freedom From Poverty Foundation's annual fundraiser. The Foundation is raising funds to start up a hospital in U.P. (India). The event was well attended, and the FFPF is surely a large step closer to reaching their goal.

December 1 - Galitcha at the Canadian Folk Music Awards
Galitcha performed at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, held at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau (just across the river from Ottawa). We had a great time performing, and it was great to see and hear some of the other musicians who were in attendance.

December 4 - McGill Tabla Ensemble
The advanced class of the McGill Tabla Ensemble performed a tabla soli in Teentaal, with harmonium accompaniment. The performance included a composed bhumika and uthan, a few moharas, followed by a kaida, a rela, and a few tukras. The audience response was great, and we're looking forward to our full-length concert in March.

Also, coming up tomorrow:
Friday, December 7 at 9:00pm (Free yoga class at 8pm)
A performance of Indian classical music by Surtaal (Nicholas Williams, bansuri and myself on tabla), followed by storytelling and poetry by Mathieu Lippé. We'll conclude the evening with some bhajans.

Studio Bliss
3841 Saint-Laurent
Montreal, Qc
Info / reservations: (514) 286-0007
Admission: 15$