Artists

Sandeep Das

Sandeep Das-Tabla

Nominated twice for the The Grammy Award, Sandeep Das is considered one of the leading tabla players in the world. Sandeep has now carved out a niche for himself throughout the musical world.

One of the favorite disciples of the legendary Pt.Kishan Maharaj ji of the Benaras Gharana, his concert tours have taken him to major centers of music on all continents including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Royce hall, the Royal Albert Hall, The Concertgebouw, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Hollywood Bowl and the Petronas Tower Hall in Malaysia to name a few.

Sandeep performed at the UNO headquarters in New York for the UN day celebrations in 2008. He has played at the BBC PROMS in 2004 and 2009 at the Royal Albert Hall.

He is the only Indian artist to have performed for the Opening Ceremony of the Special Olympics in Shanghai.

He has cut discs for more than 30 labels including Virgin, Sony and Makar Records, Music Today, Magnasound, T-Series etc.. In 2005 and again in 2011 his recordings were nominated for the Grammy Award.

His music has currently been presented to the people in USA as a downloadable ring tone for cell phones, by SONY and iTunes.

Sandeep Das went to school at St. Xavier’s Patna and then did his intermediate from Patna College, Patna University. Further education took him to Banaras Hindu University and he is a Gold Medalist in English Literature.

At the age of sixteen he had already performed with Ravi Shankar and subsequently with all the stars of Indian music. He was three times the all India drumming champion and was the youngest drummer ever to be graded by All-India radio.

“A very impressive resume for someone that young” as mentioned by BBC in their interview.

This successful intertwining of Music and Education brings forward an immediate connect with his audience world wide!!!

Some of his many achievements are listed below:

• Grammy Nomination in 2005 and 2011
  
• His composition available as ring tone for cell phones in the USA, by   iTunes and sony
• Composition “Mohini” used as theme music by NHK (Japan’s no.1 channel) for 10 episodes on the Silk Road.
• Composition “Tarang” used as theme music for film made on first ever Everest climb by Blind Climbers called “Blindsight”
• Performed at Hollywood Bowl  in front of a 85 thousand full house
• Performed his piece “Tarang” at the world famous music fest BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.
• Performed at the “Concertgebouw” (Oldest in the world thus extremely prestigious) theater in Amsterdam.
• Performs regularly at world famous Carnegie hall and Lincoln centre in New York
• Performs at Kennedy centre Washington DC
• Performs with Pt. Ravi Shankar, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Pt. Debu Choudhury, Smt. Shubha Mudgal, Dr.L.Subramaniam / Kavita Krishnamurty, Ustad Shujaat Khan to name a few regularly
• Performs with Yo Yo Ma, (17 Grammy winner), the no 1 cello player in the world
• Has performed with members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, The Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
• Performed for many visiting country heads including Queen Elizabeth and Queen of Thailand
• Invited for residencies at Rhodes Island School of design, UCLA, Stanford, Chicago Musuem of Art to name a few)
• Only Indian to perform at the opening of the Special Olympics at Shanghai, China
• Awarded Significant Achievement Award by St. Xavier’s High School(First Xavier’s in the country)
• Awarded “Patna college Blue” by Patna College
• Awarded “Chatra vibhusan” by Banaras Hindu University

Rajesh Prasanna

Rajesh Prasanna-Bamboo Flute

Rajesh Prasanna is the latest young signature in the realm of flute playing in the country. Born & hailing from a renowned family of musicians of Varanasi who have traditionally played & nurtured the shehnai for over two & half centuries, he has taken to music by inheritance.

He is the son of Pandit Rajendra Prasanna who is one of the great flute & shehnai player of the country.  It was however under the tutelage of his father Pt. Rajendra Prasanna, he learnt the finer skills and artistic intricacies as also the advanced techniques that helped him blossom as concert player of great merit.

Major Concerts :-

Rajesh participated at the prestigious ‘Tansen Samaroh’ (Gwalior),  50^th SwamiHaridas Sangeet Sammelan (Mumbai), Swarjagar Festival (Nagpur), Sankat-Mochan & Ganga-MahotsavShree Mataji Nirmala Devi’, Yuva Mahotsav organized by Sahitya Kala Parishad (Delhi), Pt. Raghunath Prasanna Smriti Sangeet Samaroh, Gharana Utsav, Pt. Vishnu Prasanna Smriti Sangeet Samaroh, Ustad Nisar Hussain Khan Smriti Sangeet Samaroh, Saptak Festival, (Ahmedabad), ITC sangeet Samellan ( Kanpur), Arpan Festival (Delhi) and Delhi International Art festival, Doverlane Music festival (Kolkata). festival (Varanasi), played for

Abroad :-

Rajesh has toured U.K. with Amaan & Ayaan Ali Khan and Grammy Award winner Evelyn Glennie for concert at Rythm Stick festival at Queen Elizabeth Hall (London) & WOMAD Festival (Reading).He also visited Philippines under the auspices of ICCR with his father Pt .Rajendra Prasanna. He has also participated at International Folk Music Festival (Ethno) in Sweden.

Suchet Malhotra

Suchet Malhotra-World Percussion

Suchet plays instruments from the world’s rhythm cultures–the tabla from India, darbouka & framedrums from Egypt, the Kurdish def, djembes from Ghana & Gambia, the Peruvian cajon, bongos from Cuba, the Congolese ududrum and the aboriginal yidaki/didgeridoo from Australia. With a diverse collection of native and ambient instruments at hand, this repertoire covers the inhabited continents and continues to grow.

EARLY YEARS

Suchet started learning the tabla while in school at Chandigarh. He moved to Delhi in 1991 and trained for the next eight years with Ustad Chhamma Khan in the tradition of the Dilli gharana. When given a darbouka, Suchet—unfamiliar with the traditional playing style—began to apply what he had learnt on the tabla to the classical drum of Egypt. With some adjustments in playing technique (the bass is played by the right hand in darbouka, left in tabla), the result was close to what a traditional player might achieve; there were even some advantages emanating from the dexterity tabla-playing provides. Work with the djembe followed, then the didgeridoo. After spending time in Australia learning both making & playing the instrument, Suchet returned to India, where, under the guidance of Pandit Kishen Maharaj, he developed a playing style for didgeridoo based on tabla thought & expression.

Today, he is a percussionist playing a wide variety of traditional instruments and contemporary styles. He is based out of New Delhi, India.

PERFORMANCE

As a soloist, Suchet performs Stories through Sound, a showcase of world percussion, native and ambient instruments.

As a percussionist, he plays latin-jazz with the Wanny Angerer Quartet, oriental fusion with Mystique, world music with Sristhi, and groove-pop with electro-acoustic outfit Da-Saz.

He performs with artistes covering a wide spectrum of genres, from chamber music (Chamber Soloists Lucerne, Switzerland) to Folk (Ethno Sweden) and Electronic music (David Scrufari/Da-Saz). He composes music for contemporary dance & theatre, is a sessions artist on demand and creates soundscapes for documentaries & animation films.

DISCOGRAPHY

2009…WANNY ANGERER LATIN JAZZ QUARTET…Bolero Namaskar
Hindustani and latin-American music mix in a heady cocktail of fusion—bansuri & percussion, tabla & piano, voices from both cultures.

2008……………DA-SAZ……………………Jet Lag
A stunning mélange of acoustic and electronic music with vocals in the four Indic languages of the Sufis.

2007……………DRUM DIMENSION…….First Master
Gonga Sain and Mithu Sain from Pakistan on dhols and Suchet on didgeridoo and Iranian def—a trance-inducing drum journey.

2004……………MYSTIQUE………………Melodies of the Orient
Instrumental oriental jazz music with eight different musicians.

Ahsaan Ali

Ahsaan Ali-Sarangi/Guitar

Born in a traditional musical background of Kirana Gharana, Music was in his blood. Ahsan is an upcoming talent on the sarangi.

Ahsan began his training from his father & his Guru Ustad Asif Ali Khan a renowned Sarangi Maestro.

Ahsan has  participated in several prestigious events and festivals such as Shankar lal festival, Khajurao festival, Tansen festival, Basant festival, Taj Mohatsav, Qutub festival, Jahan-e-Khusro, Mirza Galib, Hrbhallab festival, Haridas Sammelan, among others.

Ahsan has been accompanying many world renowned vocalists and singers including Ustad Rashid Khan, Abida Parveen, Ahmad Hussain Mohammad Hussain, Talat Azeez, Penaz Masani, Suresh Vadekar, and many more.

Ahsan has accompanied the legends of INDIA like Pt, Birju Maharaj Pt, Kishan Maharaj, Sitara Devi ji

Ahsan has been playing sarangi with instruments players like famous Sarod Brother Amaan Ali Khan & Ayaan Ali Khan, Sandeep Das and many more.

Ahsan also plays Guitar to perfection. He has learnt Guitar from Guru Ratan Prasanna.

Anil Chawla

Anil Chawla- Keyboard

He chose music over everything else at the age of 9 and has not regretted his decision since then. His love for the keyboard is seen in skill full reneditions of almost any genre, while he performs on the drums and guitars with equal ease.Having played for bands like Parikrama,World Fusion Band feat Sitar maestro Shri.Prateek Choudhary,Tochi Raina,Five’8,Work In Progress,Shwaas,Sky he yet again proves his mettle in the futuristic sounds of Vedanta..

Lavanya Sundaram

Lavanya Sundaram-Vocal

Lavanya is a formally trained artiste in the classical traditions of Bharat Natyam and Carnatic/Hindustani music in addition to being a devoted performer of Bhajans, Bhavgeets and Abhangs. She is also a graded artist of Doordarshan and All India Radio. She hails from a family of musicians.

Hailing from India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, Lavanya was initiated into Carnatic vocal music by her grandmother late Smt. K.Rajam at the tender age of 4  and continued with her training from her maternal uncle Shri.R. Seshasai. It was Shri Raman Shankar who inspired Lavanya and trained her in Hindustani Classical music as well as Abhangs. Lavanya was groomed into an accomplished dancer by iconic Guru, Smt Rajee Narayan (Mumbai) under whom she took lessons in Bharata Natyam for over 20years.

After moving to Delhi in the year 2001, Lavanya continues to take her vocal training from Prof. Arun Kumar Chatterjee and Shri Sarathi Chatterjee in Hindustani Music and from the legendry Padmashree Guru Kanaka Srinivasan in the Vazhuvoor style of Bharatha Natyam.

She has performed in various music conferences in Delhi and has given innumerable performances in prestigious venues like The Shanmukhananda Sabha ,The Chembur Fine Arts Society,The Mulund Fine Arts, The National Centre for Performing Arts(NCPA) and the Nehru Centre in Mumbai and also at The Chinmaya Mission Delhi. She has also been invited may a times to present The Impact of Music on the Elderly by The Alziemer,s Society.

She has also lent her voice to a number of Bhajan Albums.

Cristina Pato,Galician Bagpipe-Spain

Internationally acclaimed as a Galician bagpiper and classical pianist,
Cristina Pato enjoys an active professional career devoted to both Galician
popular music and to classical music. Her dual careers have led to performances
throughout major stages in the United States (Carnegie Hall 2006; Lincoln Center
2007, Metropolitan Museum 2008, New York; Chicago Symphony Hall, Chicago 2007;
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood, Massachussetts 2006), Portugal (Festa do Avante,
Lisbon 2003), Brazil (Liszt Festival, Rio de Janeiro, 2000), the United Kingdom
(Celtic Connections 2004, Glasgow), France, Italy (Etnofestival, San Marino
2002), Germany (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Berlin 2003), Mexico (Palacio de
Bellas Artes 2004) and, of course, all around her native Spain. She has
collaborated with international artists such as the Chieftains, Yo-Yo Ma, the
Silk Road Ensemble and Chicago Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Miguel
Harth-Bedoya and invited by composer Osvaldo Golijov), Hevia, the Royal Pipe
Band, the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra and the Galicia Symphony Orchestra
(conducted by Victor Pablo Perez).

Pato has released three CDs as a solo bagpiper (Tolemia, 1999;
Xilento, 2001; Misturados, 2007) and two as a collaborative
pianist (From Russia to Brazil, 2006) and has collaborated on more than
twenty recordings as a guest artist. Pato has given more than 400 concerts, many
of them recorded and broadcasted by television stations such as BBC, TVG, CNN
and RTVE, and has been acclaimed by newspapers as The New York Times,
El Pais, and The Scotsman.

A Doctor of Musical Arts in Collaborative Piano from the Mason Gross School
of the Arts, Rutgers University (New Jersey), Cristina was awarded with the Edna
Mason Scholarship and the Irene Alm Memorial Prize for excellence in scholarly
research and performance (May 2008). She holds both a Master of Music Degree in
Piano Performance (with honors) and a Master of Music Degree in Music Theory and
Chamber Music (with honors) from the Conservatorio de Musica del Liceu
(Barcelona). There she studied with Luiz de Moura Castro, Carmen Martínez and
Lourdes Pérez Molina. She also holds also a Master of Fine Arts Degree in
Digital Arts (Computer Music) from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). Her
final project, a multi-media piece entitled Ansiedad, has been
exhibited at the international exhibition BAC03 (Barcelona Arte Contemporáneo)
and at the Auditorio de Galicia (Premio Jóvenes Artistas 2003).

Wu Tong,Sheng-China

Born to a musical family in Beijing, Wu Tong has become his generation’s most
visible proponent of traditional Chinese music. As a founding vocalist of the
pioneering rock band Lunhui (Again), which merges Western and Asian traditions,
a performer with the Silk Road Ensemble, and a soloist with the New York
Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta and Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Wu has
achieved an unparalleled following for Chinese music on three continents.

Wu began his musical studies at age five with his father, and soon won dozens
of national and international competitions in the Chinese wind instrument
category. Throughout his youth, Wu was showcased as a national star, playing for
Chinese dignitaries and visiting leaders. He entered the Beijing Central
Conservatory of Music’s pre-college program at age 11, and upon graduation from
the Conservatory at age 19 became the youngest soloist of the China Central
Traditional Music and Dance Company, which toured extensively throughout China
and abroad.

In 1991, Wu and four Central Conservatory classmates founded Lunhui and began
merging the energy of rock music with traditional Chinese form and asthetics.
After their 1993 hit On the Way to Wartime Yangzhou, which set the
words of Song Dynasty poet Xin Qiji to music, JVC Japan immediately signed the
band. Subsequent recordings in 1995, 1997 and 2001 made Lunhui China’s premier
rock band in sales as well as live performances. Lunhui became the first rock
band to appear on Chinese national television in 2000, and is featured regularly
on national broadcasts and pan-Asian cable television.

Shane Shanahan,World Percussion-USA

Shane Shanahan has cultivated his own unique and highly sought after sound by combining his studies of drumming traditions from around the world with his background in jazz, rock and Western art music.   His interest in other cultures has lead to extended visits to Turkey, India, and Tajikistan, among others.  Since 2001, he has been touring around the globe performing side-by-side with Yo-Yo Ma as an original member of the award-winning Silk Road Ensemble.  Shane’s playing can be heard on all three of the ensemble’s top-selling recordings for the SonyBMG label and the two most recent albums feature his arranging skills, as well.  These arrangements have brought ecstatic audience to their feet in the top concert halls of North America, Europe and Asia. Shane can also be seen and heard on Mr. Ma’s Grammy Award winning holiday CD/DVD release “Songs of Joy.”  The Silk Road Ensemble’s most recent album, “Off the Map,” is currently nominated for a Grammy.

He is also a member of frame drum master Glen Velez’ Handance Ensemble and cellist Maya Beiser’s Provenance project.  He has performed and/or recorded with Philip Glass, Alison Krause, Sonny Fortune, Fantasia,

Chaka Khan, G. E. Smith, Simon Shaheen, Jamey Haddad, Cyro Baptista,

Anindo Chaterjee, Sandeep Das, Shahram and Hafez Nazeri, Alim

Qasimov, Kayhan Kalhor, Howard Levy and Steve Gorn, among others.

Shane has been seen/heard on TV and radio throughout North America,Europe, and Asia, including appearances on David Letterman, Good Morning America, the National Geographic Channel, NPR, PBS, NHK, and The Opening Ceremony of the Special Olympics in Shanghai.

Shane has presented workshops and clinics in many of the world’s top universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Northwestern, New York University, UC Santa Barbara and the Rhode Island School of Design.  He has also performed and created outreach programs for many world-class museums, such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Museums of Japan in Kyushu and Nara, the British Library in London, the Rietberg Museum in Zurich and the Ruben Museum of Himalayan Art in New York.

In the spring of 2000, Shane was the director of the percussion department at The Hartt School, University of Hartford. In the fall of 2006, he was a Guest Artist in Residence at the Hartt School, focusing on multi-cultural hand drumming. He will return to Hartt for both semesters of 2011. He received his Bachelor’s Degree and prestigious Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music and his Master’s Degree from The Hartt School.

John Hadfield,World percussion-USA

Percussionist John Hadfield’s dedication to bending genres has taken him

from the jungles of Indonesia to concert halls and clubs across the world.

This diversity has allowed him to perform with a broad variety of
ensembles
including Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road ensemble, The Saturday Night Live
Band on NBC,
Bang on a Can, The Michael Gordon Band, the rock bands
Amandla and Dead Heart
Bloom, Sierra Leone’s  Refugee All Stars, Combo
Nuvo, MAYA, Phil Kline, The
Bassam Saba Ensemble, Ethos Percussion Group
and Gamelan Dharma Swara.  While
performing with jazz groups John has
worked alongside Kenny Werner, Lenny
Pickett, George Garzone, Gil
Goldstein, Andrew D’Angelo, Bobby Watson,
Dominique Eade, Ben Monder,
Satoshi Takeshi, Brad Shepik, Mike Richmond and
Erik Friedlander. Currently, John lives in NYC and is on Jazz faculty of New
York University.

KOJIRO UMEZAKI, Shakuhachi- U.S.A

Kojiro Umezaki grew up in Tokyo, Japan where he began studying Western flute and the shakuhachi. His career encompasses both traditional and technology-based music and a range of electronic media. “My mother is from Denmark and my father is Japanese. My multinational background may be one of the reasons why I don’t limit myself to the traditional repertoire. In all my work, I try to put the shakuhachi in a more contemporary, musically diverse context. Hopefully this work can become part of the evolutionary process of the instrument.”

Ko is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Irvine where he is affiliated with the Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology group (ICIT) and holds a degree in Electro-acoustic Music from Dartmouth College. He performs regularly with the Silk Road Ensemble and has recorded on the Sony BMG, World Village, and Smithsonian Folkways labels.

The shakuhachi – Japanese end-blown bamboo flute – is played by blowing air across the beveled edge at the top of the instrument, while covering and uncovering the holes with fingertips. Introduced to Japan in the 7th century, it has been used to create music for Zen Buddhist meditation. The sounds produced by the shakuhachi range from soft whispers to strong piercing tones, often intended to reflect natural phenomena such as falling leaves, wind, and the cries and gestures of animals.