Frigg
Monday, September 19, 2011, 8 p.m.
Esch Hurvis Room, Warch Campus Center
Kaustinen, a cluster of villages in the western Finnish region of Ostrobothnia, has long been famous for its fiddlers. But over the last few years the standard of playing, tune writing and arranging has increased rapidly. The band Frigg is at the crest of this new wave, full of fresh ideas and taking the next leap forward for Finnish fiddle music and Nordic folk music as a whole.
The name Frigg (the Norse goddess of love and fertility) reflects the spirit of the band, where influences merge and overlap in a truly potent mix that has been catching ears on both sides of the Atlantic and leaves audiences baying for an encore.
Vidya Dengle, violin
Friday, October 7, 2011, 8 p.m.
Harper Hall, Music Drama Center
“Vidya Dengle is a performing musician, painter, sculptor, and published author of short stories for children. She studied violin in the Hindustani classical tradition with the late Ustad Zahoor Ahmed Khan of the Delhi Gharana and with Dr. Ashok Ranade in Mumbai. Familiar with American audiences, she has twice before conducted tours of American colleges and universities. She resides in Pune, Maharashtra.”
Deep Listening Band
—Tim Page, NY Newsday
Kayhan Kahlor and Brooklyn Rider
Monday, February 6, 2012, 8 p.m.
Harper Hall, Music-Drama Center Silent City, the stunning collaboration between Iranian spike-fiddle virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor and the adventurous American string quartet Brooklyn Rider has been hailed by the critics as “challenging music [that is] a real thrill ride”
—Strings magazine Kayhan Kalhor is a Grammy®–Award nominated soloist and composer. Kalhor has toured the world as a soloist with various ensembles and orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is co-founder of the renowned ensembles Dastan, Ghazal: Persian & Indian Improvisations, and Masters of Persian Music. Kalhor has composed works for Iran’s most renowned vocalists and instrumentalists and was most recently featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth in a score that he collaborated on with Osvaldo Golijov.
The multi-faceted string quartet Brooklyn Rider is becoming increasingly known for its creative programming and exciting collaborations which serve to illuminate music in new ways. Born out of a desire to use the rich medium of the string quartet as a vehicle for borderless communication, all of the musicians have enjoyed diverse careers in music that have intersected with each other over many years.
Kane Mathis, kora
Sunday, February 19, 2012, 8 p.m.
Harper Hall, Music-Drama Center
Kane began his musical career at age 16 playing blues and jazz clubs in Chicago performing with legends such as Barrelhouse Chuck and Harmonica Todd for 5 years performing everywhere from festivals to roadhouses before going to The Lawrence Conservatory to study Jazz and Classical guitar. Simultaneously Kane Began making trips to The Gambia, Africa to live with a family of hereditary musicians which he has done for the past 14 years. Kane holds a diploma from The Tiramang Traditional music school in The Gambia and has performed for the President of The Gambia, the American Ambassador to The Gambia, and he has appeared on Gambian National Radio and Television. Kane’s first album was on daily rotation on Gambian radio. Kane is also one of the leading interpreters of Ottoman classical music having studied at Istanbul’s I.T.U. conservatory before beginning a 5 year apprenticeship with Oud virtuoso Münir Nurettin Beken.
Kane is a recipient of this year’s Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Award for “album of the year” and in the past year has completed two evening length scores for dance works and provided music for two evening length pieces for theater. Currently Kane is completing translations of Mandinka histories and accounts by the bardic musicians of the Gambia. The Acconts will be published into dual language texts as sources for Gambian history and as language study resources. Kane is also recently a nationally sponsored musician registered by the National Council for Arts and Culture in the Gambia.
Red Baraat
Monday, April 9, 2012, 8 p.m.
Esch Hurvis Room, Warch Campus Center
The band artfully hybridizes Indian bhangra and something akin to New Orleans second-line funk.
— Chicago Reader Shimmering city kaleidoscope, bouncing with beats, bubbling up boom box blasting on skateboarder’s shoulders, as solo saxophone soars into sky from third floor window. In line at Punjabi Deli, behind cabbies, chai spills onto the hot asphalt of NYC. Bhangra sounds take hold of my body. Red Baraat is born.
Led by drummer Sunny Jain, Red Baraat delivers a riveting new sound that is coupled with an explosive stage performance and presence. Comprised of dhol (a double-sided, barrel-shaped North Indian drum slung over one shoulder), drum set, percussion, sousaphone and five horns, Baraat melds the infectious North Indian rhythm bhangra with a host of sounds, namely funk, go-go, Latin and jazz.
