Various concerts Nov 2014 - Jul 2015

It's been a while since my last round-up of past gigs, and I've got a big tabla school concert to post about so I'm catching up first. Here's what I've been up to since going to Varanasi last November...

DEC 2014

• Sat Dec 13 Noosa: Spirit of Bhakti
• Sat Dec 20 Chenrezig: Benefit gig with Tenzin Choegyal and Radha Bornstein
• Dec 27 - Jan 1 Woodford 2014-15 with Pt Santosh and Sangeet Mishra (blog) - what a blast!

JAN 2015

• Sat Jan 10 Mullumbimby: Devotional Music of India & Pakistan - Pt Santosh and Sangeet Mishra, Tahir Qawwal, Shen Flindell - an awesome packed house, covered in the linked blog.
• Thu Jan 15 Brisbane: Tibet2Timbuk2 - afternoon gig in the Queen St Mall.
• Fri Jan 23 New Farm: "Beyond Optimism" @ Festival of Tibet - click the link for videos

FEB 2015

• Tue Feb 10 Brisbane: BrisAsia - Tibet2Timbuk2 - lunchtime concert in the beautiful Brisbane City Hall main auditorium
• Sat Feb 14 Annerley: Sunita Tikare (classical vocal) with Rahim Zullah and Shen Flindell - a brilliant vocalist; newspaper review linked.
• Tue Feb 17 Brisbane: BrisAsia - Huib Schippers (sitar) and Shen Flindell (tabla) - lunchtime concert in the beautiful Brisbane City Hall main auditorium

MAR 2015

• Sat Mar 28 Bangalow: Enchanting Journey of jazz-indo fusion with Bansuri, Guitar & Tabla - Shyan, Bart, Shen - A lovely home concert and my first chance to play with Shyan Kishore (bansuri). We also had a great jam session late, after the concert, with hamsa veena player Shivam Rath.

Bart Stenhouse (guitar), Shen Flindell (tabla), Shyan Kishore (bansuri)

APR 2015

• Sat Apr 11 St Lucia: Rahim Zullah (vocal), Shen Flindell (tabla) - Private mehfil until late in the night. Everyone seemed to be happy with my ghazal accompaniment, which is a new thing for me.
  
• Sat Apr 18 Banyo: Pt Shantanu Bhattacharya (vocal) with Shen Flindell (tabla) - A really memorable concert which was pulled together on short notice, thanks to Shantanu-da's student Inderpreet for bringing him, and to Swara Mohini association for hosting the concert. I really hope that he can come back regularly.
  
  
  
  Shen Flindell (tabla), Pt Shantanu Bhattacharyya (vocal), Rupam (tanpura), Manbir Singh (dilruba)
  
  
  
• Sat Apr 25 Sth Maclean - Ashu Babu Memorial Tabla School @ Selva Vinayagar Temple - After a traditional tabla lehra by Thejan and Sivamsan, my 3 senior students Tito, Sanjey and Jesinthan, along with myself and sitarist Anju Ketheeswaran presented an original arrangement for sitar and 4 tabla with parts of sitar solo and tabla lehera intertwined. It also included a special arrangement of complimentary kaydas on differently tuned tabla, creating an arpeggio effect, something I'm calling "kayda parivar" (kayda family).
  
  
  
  

MAY 2015

• Sat May 2 Kenmore Hills: Sugata Marjit (vocal) and Shen - Sugata Marjit visits Brisbane yearly in his role as an economics professor, and we always have an enjoyable home concert.
• Sat May 9 Beenleigh: Private event with Murali Ramakrishnan (bansuri)
• Sat May 16 Eight Mile Plains: Hindustani Classical Sitar Recital - Smt Shrabani Choudhury (sitar)
  
  
  
  
• Sun May 17 The Gap: Spirit of Bhakti - A small yoga centre show and a warm-up for our big CD launch on June 13.
• Sat May 23 Upper Mt Gravatt: "MEHFIL" with Rahim Zullah, Shen Flindell, Cameron Bower, Omeed Tasmim

JUN 2015

• Fri Jun 12 BEMAC: World Music Cafe with Feridun Avar and friends - An interesting gig organised by my good friend, Turkish musician Feridun Avar, in which we collaborated with kora player Lansana Camara. We presented a mix of solo, duo and trio pieces, largely improvised and well-received by the BEMAC audience.
  
  
  
• Sat Jun 13 BEMAC: Spirit of Bhakti CD launch with Shai Shriki - A glorious success, as Spirit of Bhakti launched our new CD Open Door to a full house at BEMAC. Go and buy our CD now, it's fantastic.
  
  
  Spirit of Bhakti CD Launch: Marcello Milani (guest guitar), Shen Flindell (tabla), Rebecca Bornstein (vocals, guitar), Menaka Visvanathan Thomas and students (vocals), Shai Shriki (guest oud, vocals)
• Sat Jun 20 Zillmere: Rahim Zullah and friends morning concert - attended by about 5 people, but fun.
• Sat Jun 20 Tamborine: Nepal fundraiser featuring Tenzin Choegyal and Rafael Karlen (saxophone) - An unexpected invitation to join Tenzin and improvise with some amazing jazz musicians made for a pleasant night with some unexpected good luck. It was a really fun night which raised thousands for Nepal, and I met my old school friend Kara who offered to host a Spirit of Bhakti concert in August, which turned out to be a great success too.

JUL 2015

• Fri Jul 20 Fortitude Valley: Crossing the Border - World Music concert for Nepal - featuring Spirit of Bhakti - Thanks to Ravi Welsh for putting energy into this fundraiser, which raised several hundred dollars for Nepal earthquake relief.

AUG 2015

• Sat Aug 1 BEMAC: 8th Annual Ashu Babu Memorial Tabla School Concert - Lots of photos coming very soon!
• Sat Aug 8 Canungra: Spirit of Bhakti - A big success, hooray!!! Nothing like a country gig organised by a friendly, well-connected local. Thanks Kara. Spirit of Bhakti are going places, you watch! We have a couple of months off but October and November are looking busy for us.