Thursday, August 13, 2015

8th Annual Ashu Babu Memorial Tabla School Concert

On Saturday 1st August 2015, the day after Guru Purnima (the full moon for Gurus), we held our 8th annual tabla school concert at QLD Multicultural Centre. There was a real step up in quality this year with 21 students all preparing well in the preceding months and playing their best on the night. We have to thank my senior guru-bhai Govinda Chakraborty for the way he influenced our lessons in his visit last September, resulting in a lot more attention being paid to counting rhythms and maintaining correct posture while playing. Quite a number of the intermediate students started to get more deeply into practice in the last year.

Harmonium accompaniment was given by Joseph Nand and this year we added dilruba accompaniment by Adarshbir Singh for a few of the acts, which really added to the colour of the naghma. Many thanks to Brent for the photos, to our regular sponsors Brisbane Indian Times, and to all the students and parents for their continued efforts.

Item 1: Bhajan by Rhea Ravi, accompanied by Nikhil Deo.


Item 2: Beginners - Aarav and Aditya.


Item 3: Juniors - Ashwin, Josh, Aaryan, Mann.


Item 4: Varun Lal. Varun was going to perform in the Inaugural Ashu Babu Memorial Tabla School Concert in 2008, but had a tragic car accident which left him unable to walk, talk, or move much at all. After years of intensive therapy and hard work he restarted tabla lessons last year and performed at our school concert! He's unable to use his left hand so performed a kayda and paran composed especially for the right hand only.


Item 5: Ladies - Anna and Rhea.


Item 6: Westlake and Chermside - Ishaaq, Bipro, Hari, Ayngaran, Sivamsan


Item 7: Gold Coast - Arun, Siva, Nikhil, Thejan


Item 8: Seniors - Sanjey, Tito, Jesinthan


Presentation of certificates, featuring our guru lineage from Benares Gharana founder Pt Ram Sahai, to my gurus and myself.


Adarshbir brought a beautiful new sound and energy to our concert with the dilruba.


Tabla solo by Shen Flindell, accompanied by Adarshbir Singh (dilruba) and Joseph Nand (harmonium).


...watched over by Guru-ji Late Pt Ashutosh Bhattacharya.

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