Tokyo concerts part 1

After a successful and enjoyable few days in Kansai, Yuki and I took an overnight bus to reach Tokyo in time for a special live TV appearance with Taro Terahara on NHK-BS1 program "Hotto @ Asia". Taro was being interviewed as part of a series of features on different Indian classical musicians in Japan. It was an interesting day - rehearsal, makeup, then live show including 3 minutes of music.  I think someone may be able to upload the video to Youtube sometime, but it hasn't happened yet...

Shen, Taro and Fumie (tanpura) with the Hotto @ Asia hosts

The following weekend (April 20-22) I had a few concerts, firstly with father-and-son sitar duo Koro and Rei Ito, at regular world music venue Otoya-Kintoki.  Koro-san greeted me by saying "Japan's radiation is very high!" and later asked me to give a message to "all of Japan" (although there were just 8 people listening!). What could I say? There should be more vocal political opposition to nuclear power here.

The next night I joined Taro again to accompany Kathak dancer Atsuko Maeda in a dance studio in Meiji-Jingu-Mae, near Shibuya.  It's been a few years since I accompanied Kathak (last time being with Atsuko-san on Tenzin's first Japan tour in 2009), and it was very enjoyable going through those dance rhythms again. Yuki and I will be accompanying Atsuko at a concert in Tokyo on May 5 and again at Dance of Shiva in Izu on May 20.

Then on the Sunday Yuki Taniguchi gave a nada yoga workshop at Rakudoan in Kanda, Tokyo, followed by our concert.  We played almost 2 hours of music, starting with Yuki's mantras, followed by Dhrupad in Raga Yaman (alap and chautaal), various bhajans and kirtans, and finally tabla solo.

This weekend I had 2 concerts, firstly back at Otoya-Kintoki, this time with Afghani music group Chalpasah. It was lovely to accompany beautiful Afghani music, as well as to play some Indian classical music with Taro as always.

Then last night I joined my old friend TC Deane at jazz/rock/blues venue Someday in Futamatagawa (near Yokohama).  TC and I first met when I was living in Tokyo back in 2005 and the last time we properly played together was at that time, also at Someday.  We had some really beautiful improvisations and the audience, only one of whom had ever seen tabla before, seemed quite profoundly affected.  TC has uploaded some audio from the concert to his soundcloud page. Thanks TC.

Remaining concerts on my Japan tour:

• Sat May 5 Tokyo: Cafe Muriwui - Atsuko Maeda
• Fri May 18 - Mon May 21 Izu: DANCE OF SHIVA2012-Travel of mind effect music-
• Wed May 23 Tokyo: Taro Terahara (bansuri), Tetsuya Kaneko (pakhawaj), Shen (tabla)

Tabla Exam Success for Forest Lake Boys

A copy of the article on my tabla students' recent PRSSV tabla exam results, to be published in May 2012 Brisbane Indian Times:

Tabla students from Forest Lake, The Gap and Bundaberg have achieved distinctions in a London-based tabla exam. Bhavik Barot (12, tabla grade 5), Neel Chandra (15, grade 4), Krishan Chandra (13, grade 3), Sivamsan Senthilvasan (9, grade 3) and Abraham Birkelund (10, grade 1) earned top results among 14 Queensland tabla students who took the exams held by Pandit Ram Sahai Sangeet Vidyalaya (PRSSV).

Bhavik Barot of Forest Lake received a distinction in grade 5 of the recent PRSSV tabla exams

Of the other students of the Ashutosh Bhattacharya Memorial Tabla School who took the exams, 6 received merits and 3 passes. The exams are available in 8 grades equivalent to AMEB or Trinity music examinations. The students have to study a range of practical and theoretical material including classical tabla repertoire, Hindustani classical music theory, music writing system, biographies of famous musicians, and the history of tabla gharanas.

Bhavik, Neel and Krishan have weekly tabla classes together in Forest Lake with tabla teacher Shen Flindell, who also gives group and private lessons at other locations around Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Abraham and his father, Swedish-born Tor Birkelund travel to Brisbane all the way from Bundaberg for their tabla lessons, and have plans for Abraham to take more intensive tabla studies in an ashram in India next year.

The top Brisbane tabla students, Tito Basu (16, Springfield) and Sanjey Sivaananthan (16, Westlake) successfully completed grade 7 and will attempt grade 8 when the exams are next held in Brisbane next January. As well as completing requirements on tabla, Tito and Sanjey had to present compositions and demonstrate theoretical knowledge in two ragas. PRSSV are currently applying for recognition by the Qld Studies Authority, so that from next year exam results will be included in the students' school certificates.

For enquiries about PRSSV tabla exams, tabla lessons, repairs and instrument sales, please contact Shen Flindell on 0415106428 (after June 9) or email shen@ethnosuperlounge.com

Kansai concerts with 3 sitar players and Yuki

After the 40 degree heat of Varanasi it was a relief to come to the beautiful spring weather of Japan. We arrived here at the peak of sakura (cherry blossom) season. After a stressful journey from Kuala Lumpur, via Haneda to Kamakura and then by bus to Kyoto, I was happy to wake up to the perfect spring day for some hanami (flower viewing) with friends.



I had a busy few days in Kansai, starting with a concert on the Thursday in Kobe with sitar player Shuhei Ozaki, student of current rising star Purbayan Chatterjee. Yohei Iwashita (sitar) and Bayan Fujisawa (tabla) opened the night. I have to say a big thanks to Shuhei-san for pulling this concert together so that we could have a chance to play together.


On the Friday I joined old friend Yasuhiro Minamizawa, with whom I played at my Guru-ji's memorial concert in 2006, at Uzura Gallery in Kyoto.

Then on Saturday it was off to Cafe Amanto in Osaka for Calcutta Night Vol 82 with Tadao Ishihama. Tadao has been playing sitar as long as I've been playing tabla, but started at the age of 15! I've played with Tadao at Amanto many times over the years, starting back in September 2002.


Finally on the Sunday I accompanied Yuki Taniguchi in a concert following her nada yoga workshop, held in a beautiful old Kyoto house ("machiya"). Our concert followed our usual pattern of mantras, kirtans and bhajans, finishing up with a short tabla solo. Very enjoyable :-)

After dinner we jumped on a night bus back to Tokyo, where I appeared with bansuri player Taro Terahara on NHK TV programme "Hotto @ Asia", which was a very interesting experience.  Will post links to video if anyone uploads them...

I have a few concerts in Tokyo from hereon:

• Fri Apr 20 Tokyo: Concert with Kourou and Rei Itou (sitar)
• Sat Apr 21 Tokyo: 「東京ガラナ＃８」 　ーNew Moonー Atsuko Maeda (Kathak), Taro Terahara (bansuri)
• Sun Apr 22 Tokyo: Nada Yoga Workshop and Concert with Yuki Taniguchi
• Fri Apr 27 Tokyo: Concert with Chalpasah (Afghani) and Taro
• Sat May 5 Tokyo: Cafe Muriwui - Atsuko Maeda

Varanasi sessions

Here are a last couple of pics from my time in Varanasi this year. On weekends I visited my late Guru-ji's house, where his son Dr Debabrata "Bappa" Bhattacharya and student Manishankar Tripathi continue the tabla tradition there. Here we are playing with 14 year old Asheesh, who is going really very well. While there I received some training in the famous 15 beat taal, Pancham Sawari, from Bappa-da.

I also visited the home of renowned tabla player Pt Ishwar Lal Mishra, nephew of the legendary Pt Anokhelal Mishra, and his sons Dhananjay (tabla) and Anand (sitar). Dhananjay and Anand were to visit Australia later this year so I went a couple of times for practice in anticipation of a concert together in Brisbane. (Unfortunately their visas didn't work out so the tour has been cancelled this year.) It was a great honour to practise with Ishwar Lal-ji and get some bols and some feeling from his way of playing.

8th Annual Ashu Babu Memorial Concert

March 17 was my Guru-ji, Late Pandit Kaviraj Ashutosh Bhattacharya's birthday and every year since his passing his students have organised a memorial concert on Tulsi Ghat on this day. (Click here for blogs on previous years' concerts: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006) This year's concert was, as always, very well organised and enjoyed by a full house of attentive listeners. It opened with a splendid vocal concert by Smt Kalapini Komkali, including a gorgeous bhajan in 7 beats. Then followed a powerful tabla solo in Benares style by Sri Arvind Kumar Azad, who also accompanied the final item, Kathak dance by Pt Kishen Mohan Mishra and family.

Holi season concerts and fun

No I didn't go out and play Holi in Varanasi this year. In keeping with our usual policy of keeping clean and calm, Yuki and I stayed in and did a big yoga session on the morning of Holi. However, around Holi there was lots of fun to be had in Varanasi.

A couple of days beforehand our friend Gumi (a bansuri player from Kyoto) organised a concert called "Namaste Mela" featuring foreign students of Indian classical music, in which I accompanied Tetsu Takana, a sitar student of Pt Shiv Nath Mishra. Along with one practice, it was the first time we'd met or played together, but hopefully not the last! Very enjoyable.

Hannah played very beautiful alap on Mohan veena

Gumi played Holi in the chai break

Shen and Tetsu playing together for the first time

On the afternoon of Holi it's traditional to put on new clothes and go visiting friends. I took this photo of Yuki and Nao on the way to visit their Guru-Ma.

Holi is on the full moon

An atmosphere of wildness lingers on for a few days after Holi, helped by traditional drumming groups like this (and mobile DJs).

A few days after Holi it was March 11, the first anniversary of the great Tohoku Earthquake of 2011. Many Japanese people in Varanasi gathered at Dasaswamedh Ghat to pray together and to sing a Japanese folk song, "Furusato" ("Homeland"). Yuki was asked to play the harmonium and lead the singing!

Some Varanasi concerts

I arrived in Varanasi the day before Shivaratri ("Shiva's night"), one of the biggest festivals in the City of Shiva. There are usually two big music festivals around Shivaratri: the Dhrupad Mela (now in its 37th year) on Tulsi Ghat, and the more recent khayal event near Durga Temple, sponsored by Jalan's. As my wife Yuki is studying Dhrupad vocal she spent all her time at the Dhrupad Mela - see her blog (many photos, text in Japanese). I visited the Jalan's concert for a couple of items but was mostly disappointed. The sponsor's son's singing sent me out the door. Talk about nepotism.

Meanwhile at Dhrupad Mela... Yuki performed with her Guru-ji Dr Ritwik Sanyal's student group and did very well.

Two days later I saw Tahir Qawwal's excellent Qawwali group Fanna-fi-Allah at a guest house in Assi. Tahir spends parts of the year in Varanasi, USA and Byron Bay, so he is a nearby musical friend for me when our schedules coincide. I've seen and accompanied Tahir in khayal and light classical (in which he is also excellent) but this was the first I'd heard his Qawwali. The atmosphere was electric and uplifting. Kudos to Hari Om Hari on the tabla.

The following day we were blessed to be invited to a special ceremonial concert. My friends Debapriya Adhikary (vocal) and Samanwaya Sarkar (sitar), aka Debapriya-Samanwaya, had their gandabandhan initiation with Benares vocal legend Smt Girija Devi. Many local music legends were in attendance. (I've written previous blogs with Deb-Sam.)

A sarody time in Kolkata

Here I am in India again. As I write this, Varanasi (and most of North India) is getting excited Holi with fires set up all over town ready to burn tonight, and colours in stock for tomorrow morning's water battles (which I'll stay safely away from inside, thanks).

I flew in through Kolkata and spent a few days there in order to catch up with some musical friends. It turned out that everyone I met was a sarod player! On the first day I was invited by Facebook friend Apratim Majumdar to practice with him. He gave me some good advice about making tihais in khanda jati (dividing the beat into 5).

That night I visited Pratik Shrivastav and tabla player Chiranjit Mukherjee, whom I met at Woodford Festival in December where they were playing in Earthsync Collective. Pratik and Chiranjit were practising for their concert to be held the next day at Ramakrishna Mission, so I was only able to play with Pratik a little that night. It was refreshing to be in that musical family atmosphere. Pratik's mother (a sitarist) was also listening to the practice and gave some nice ideas.

The following day I caught up with Japanese sarod player Baku Hirakawa, who like Pratik is a student of Pt Tejendra Narayan Majumdar. There are quite a few very dedicated Japanese students of Indian classical music who spend a lot of time in south Kolkata doing hard practice and taking lessons with great masters.

It wasn't far from there to Ramakrishna Mission where Pratik and Chiranjit were giving their concert that night. Guru-ji Tejendra Narayan Majumdar was in attendance along with great tabla player Subhankar Banerjee. I also bumped into another Japanese sarodist, Yasu Fujibayashi, though there was no time for us to practise together before I headed to Varanasi the next day. Hopefully when I'm in Kyoto in April!

Festival of Tibet 2012

On Sat 4 Feb Tibet2Timbuk2 gave two performances at the annual Festival of Tibet in Brisbane Powerhouse. We were joined for both concerts by special guests Peter Hunt (trumpet) and Katherine Philp (cello).

The first performance was a free show on the Turbine Platform as part of BEMAC's Planet Series of monthly world music concerts at the Powerhouse. The platform was packed as were the two levels of balconies above the platform! Fantastic response.

In the second concert, in the Visy Theatre, we provided musical accompaniment along with the Tashi Lhunpo Monks for a spoken word performance by Tibetan activist and writer Tenzin Tsundue. In the 90 minute show he talked about his experiences as a Tibetan in exile growing up in India, believing in the cause of Free Tibet, walking to Tibet over the Chinese border, being interrogated in jail in Lhasa and later in an Indian jail when marching to the border at the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was a very powerful performance and a great honour and experience for us to be part of.

Many thanks to Tenzin Choegyal for organising this fantastic yearly festival and creating such interesting projects. Thanks also to Carolyn Stubbin of Perfect Potion (main festival sponsors) for these lovely photos.

Katherine Philp - cello