Tibet2Timbuk2 with Sulagna Basu in Noosa

This weekend Tibet2Timbuk2 had a double header on the Sunshine Coast, with an afternoon concert at one of our favourite venues, Crystal Waters Eco-Village, followed by an evening concert in Noosa Pengari Steiner School. Unfortunately I don't have any photos from the afternoon concert, but here are some from the evening. Thanks to organiser Jalberto Maldonado of Timbeao Planet and to special guest artist Sulagna Basu.

Sulagna Basu opened the evening with a variety of classical, semi-classical and folk songs, accompanied on tabla by Shen.

We concluded the first half of the programme with a tabla duet between Shen and his senior student, Sulagna's son Tito Basu, which got a very good audience response.

Tibet2Timbuk2 were joined by special guest Sulagna Basu on vocals in "Crane Song"

Sulagna performed some Kathak dance with us on "Tso Marpo"

Masters of Sarangi tour

This August I was lucky and blessed to have a tour around the Brisbane region with sarangi masters, Pt Santosh Mishra (Varanasi) and his son Sri Sangeet Mishra (now based in Mumbai). If you've seen concerts in Varanasi there's a very good chance you've seen Santosh-ji accompanying some great singer or tabla soloist, as he is invariably invited to all concerts for his great accompaniment. Santosh-ji and Sangeet-bhai's duets were just marvellous, as they naturally played together in a true jugalbandi - two people playing as one. In all we had 8 performances and I'm very much looking forward to their next tour! I've posted a larger selection of photos in my Facebook album, "Masters of Sarangi".

We participated in the Indian Independence Day function at Qld Conservatorium on 15 Aug.

Our first full concert was a home concert at Sim and Pat Symons home in Sunshine Coast. Yuki opened all of our concerts with Dhrupad or Bhajan (depending on the concert), accompanied by Sangeet-bhai's lush sarangi.

On Saturday afternoon we went up to Toowoomba to join Tenzin Choegyal in his concert there. We just performed a short raga, and 3 of the attendees drove all the way to Bracken Ridge (2 hours each way) for our full raga concert that night!

Bracken Ridge concert

We had the first home concert at our new house in Oxley
- what a way to inaugurate our new home!

The Nimbin concert was the biggest of the tour.

Many thanks to promoter DanaLee Mynard of Spirited Productions.

Nimbin concert

Workshop at Ocean Shores

Ocean Shores home concert - a packed house!

Final concert in Mt Gravatt, thanks to Swara Mohini's Anant Bellary.

Opened by sitarist Smt Shrabani Choudhury.

We had such a great time at all the concerts, but especially the last one :-)

5th Annual Ashu Babu Memorial Tabla School Concert

As usual in July we held our annual tabla school concert, as always one of the major highlights of my year, where I have strong feelings of the presence of my late Guru-ji in my life, of the energy and knowledge transmitted through the guru-shishya parampara (guru-student lineage) starting from Benares Gharana progenitor Pt Ram Sahai through his students down to my myself and my students. A very powerful and joyful event. Many thanks to all the students and parents, and especially to our regular lehra player Joseph Nand and sound-guy Mohit Lal.
(Links for previous concerts: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.)

Altar to Guru-ji

Our regular harmonium accompanist, Sri Joseph Abhay Nand

Yuki opened with shloka and bhajan

Making his first appearance with self-accompanied bhajan, Rushi Kakkad (4)

Ravneel Deo (14), Bipro Hussain (10), Ishaaq Jamil (9)

On-track to be Brisbane's leading female tabla player, Rhea Ravi (8)

Father-son team Jeevan and Sivamsan Senthilvasan (10)

Gold Coast students Nitin Niranjan (14) and Thejan Elankayer (12)

Jesinthan Ketheeswaran (18)

Bhavik Barot (12)

Arka Tito Basu (16)

All the students received certificates featuring the lineage of gurus starting from Pt Ram Sahai

We finished up with my tabla solo, in which I played some new compositions I learned this year from Pt Chhote Lal Mishra's book "Tabla Granth".

Tibet2Timbuk2 at Powerhouse with IJIMP

On the winter solstice (June 21), Tibet2Timbuk2 had a show at Brisbane Powerhouse, organised by BEMAC as part of their "Planet" series of concerts. This concert was titled "Focus on Fusion" and also featuring Indo-Japanese Improvised Music Project (IJIMP). This was our first show in Brisbane since before my trip to India in Japan starting in February, and we're not sure when the next Brisbane show will be...? Maybe December or January when special guest Taro Terahara (bansuri) will be in town.

IJIMP - Takako Nishiburi (koto), Carl Rathus (shakuhachi), Ravikesh Singh (tabla)

Tibet2Timbuk2 with special guest Nicholas Ng (erhu)

Honeymoon on Kho Phangan

It's been a very busy few months with some photos coming to me slowly, so please excuse the lateness of these next few blogs, catching up after a few months.

On the way back from Japan to Australia, after completing our tihai of weddings, Yuki and I had a well-earned and very blissful honeymoon in Koh Phangan, a beautiful island in the Gulf of Thailand. We stayed at Why Nam Huts, a very quiet beach with just one set of bungalows and a yoga platform. We rose early for sunrise yoga each day, practised music, ate lots and lots of Thai food and read a couple of books. Oh and we had some fun on full moon night too.

View of Brisbane on the way back from our Thai honeymoon.