TABLACENTRIC @ Sangati Center 11/2/08

Tabla solos and duets with three of the bay area’s next-generation tabla talents

Sangati Center – 3049 22nd Street – San Francisco CA

4:00pm
$10 – $20 (sliding scale)

Jason Ranjit Parmar – tabla

Sameer Gupta – tabla

Ashok Maitra – tabla

Wallace Harvey – harmonium nagma

Recently completing a Master in Fine Arts in World Music at the California Institute of the Arts, Robin Sukhadia has been studying tabla under Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at CalArts and the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California for the past six years. For the past 5 years, Robin has traveled internationally on behalf of Project Ahimsa, an organization committed to empowering impoverished youth through music education. He has taught workshops and lectured at UCLA, Pomona College, the University of San Francisco, and at Eagle Rock Professional Development Center in Estes Park, Colorado. In April 2008, he successfully completed a tabla-centric Artist Residency at the Machine Project, Los Angeles. His writings on music education and creative process have appeared in Hyphen Magazine, the Subcontinental, India Currents, and Saathee Magazine.

Jason Parmar is beginning his seventh year of Tabla study with Tabla virtuoso Swapan Chaudhuri at the Ali Akbar College of Music. He has previously studied tabla accompaniment with Sitar master Hasu Patel, Bansuri flute Maestro, G.S. Sachdev and with two esteemed tabla instructors in New Delhi, India. Jason recently had the privilege of accompanying Maestro Ali Akbar Khan for his advanced vocal class. He has also performed throughout the SF bay area with numerous esteemed artists such Tina Malia, Bhagavan Das, Geoffrey Gordon, Jaya Lakshmi, Lakshmi Devi and Suzanne Sterling. He also performs Hindustani Classical and Near Eastern music regularly throughout the bay area with Bansuri flautist Eliyahu Sills. Jason’s percussion skills are not limited to tabla. His versatility on world drums extends to include drum kit, djembe, udu and frame drums. He holds a Masters degree from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Founder of the critically acclaimed SF based Improvisational Ensemble The Supplicants, Sameer Gupta is an original musical voice in jazz, world, and fusion music. He has studied percussion for most of his life, beginning in Tokyo, Japan 1985, and since then has performed on drumset at Jazz at Lincoln Center, tabla at Asagiri Jam in Japan and various Jazz and World music festivals across the nation and abroad playing both tabla and drumset simultaneously. Sameer began his studies of North Indian Classical Tabla in 2002, and has the honor of studying with tabla maestro Pandit Anindo Chatterjee. Sameer has the honor of being associated with many great artists including Marc Cary, Prasant Radhkrishnan, David Ewell, Pt. Chitresh Das, Parijat Desai, Stephen Kent, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Sekou Sundiata and numerous other fine artists.

Images from the Event (click to enlarge):