Featuring Eric Fraser on the Bansuri (bamboo) flute, Samarth Nagarkar (vocal) and Sameer Gupta (tabla) and Rohan Prabhudesai (Harmonium accompaniment)
Join us for two sets of captivating sound meditation in the form of an Indian Classical music concert. These renowned and highly accomplished Indian music artists will present raga music in a traditional format: improvising within the structure of ancient melodic formulas to invoke particular subtleties of mind and emotion, contained within and supported by trance-inducing rhythm cycles..
The sadhana (rich, heartfelt practice) of this music can extend beyond the deep meditation of the artist to you as the audience. As a listener, you can engage in a sadhana of deep listening. The melodies and rhythm cycles of the Indian Classical format offer the active listener pathways into inner landscape of emotion and consciousness. The music tells stories, teaches, inspires and transports, and develops gradually, building slowly to ecstatic realms.
Program:
1st set
Eric Fraser- bansuri
Sameer Gupta- tabla
2nd set
Samarth Nagarkar- vocal
Rohan Prabhudesai- harmonium
Sameer Gupta- tabla
Tickets are $15 online/$20 at the door.
Artist Bios:
Samarth Nagarkar
Samarth Nagarkar is acknowledged to be one of today’s foremost and prolific artistes representing Hindustani classical music traditions. He is known for his eclectic, captivating performances reflecting extensive training and an artistic vision encompassing tradition and modernity in a rare balance.
After years of rigorous training under the celebrated performer and guru, Pt. Ulhas Kashalkar, he graduated as a Grade-A scholar of the ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata in 2009. Prior to this, he trained under the eminent late Pt. Dinkar Kaikini in Mumbai, following an inspired early initiation into music by Smt. Aditi Kaikini Upadhya in his hometown Bangalore. By virtue of intense and extensive guru-shishya parampara training Samarth’s performance repertoire encompasses styles, ragas and compositions of three prominent gharanas – Gwalior, Agra and Jaipur.
Samarth performs regularly in most reputed concert platforms and venues in India and the USA, as well as frequently features in television and radio programs across the world. Some of his recent concerts in the US include the Ali Akbar College of Music and Basant Bahar, CA, Chhandayan All Night Concert, New York, Woodstock 2012, and Universities of Stanford, Indiana, Penn State and UPenn, to name only a few. In India he recently performed at several top ranking music festivals and venues including the ITC Sangeet Sammelan, Kolkata, Saptak and D. U. Yuva Sangeetotsav, Bangalore, The National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai and India Habitat Center, New Delhi, among others.
He is a recipient of prestigious national awards including the President’s award for the AIR competition in 2000, which also made him a graded artiste of the AIR. The Government of India awarded him a fellowship in 2009 for his research and documentation of the music of Gwalior gharana through the past century.
He has composed and continues to record music and soundtracks for international and cultural conventions and films. Samarth also authored his first book ‘Raag-Sageet’ published in 2013. He has two CDs/Albums titled ‘Pravah’ and ‘Pranali’ to his credit.
Former head of the K. K. Kapoor Sangeet Research Academy, Lucknow, Samarth has been conducting very successful and popular lecture demonstrations and music workshops across India and the USA. Samarth also spearheaded an Indian Music Choir.
Samarth currently divides him time between the US and India pursuing an active career as a leading performer, composer, teacher and author. Visit Samarth on the web at http://samarthnagarkar.com/
Eric Fraser
Eric is an emerging exponent of a rare style of Indian classical flute playing. Known for its purity and antiquity, this West Bengal lineage conjures an Old World India aesthetic of meditative depth, lyrical beauty, and ecstatic technicality. A 2011 Fulbright Senior Scholar for Indian music and has been learning intensively in the guru/ shishya parampara tradition under the training of his Guru, Pandit Gopal Roy since 2003.
Eric regularly performs for enthralled audiences in both India and the USA.
Eric has a diverse background playing for Indian Classical dance, as well as in projects ranging from World, Indie, Jazz, and more.
In addition to Indian Classical flute, Eric is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and Music Therapist (MA, BC-MT) working with children in NYC
Sameer Gupta
Sameer Gupta is known as one of the few percussionists simultaneously representing the traditions of American jazz on drumset, and Indian classical music on tabla. He has held workshops on Indian music and cross over drumming styles, at Carnegie Hall Global Encounters, The Jazzschool in Berkeley and Berklee College of Music in Boston. By combining traditional and modern improvisational styles drawing from his Indian heritage and American roots, Sameer has already established himself as an original musical voice in jazz, world, and fusion music. From bebop to avant-garde jazz, and European classical percussion to North Indian classical tabla, Gupta continues to compose and perform music from a true multi-cultural perspective that now bridges several continents.
Visit Sameer on the web at http://sameergupta.com