Gold Coast Multicultural Festival and home concert with Tenzin

In mid-September I had a double header with a morning concert on the Gold Coast followed by an afternoon home concert near Mullumbimby. Tabla Tarrango! (my tabla student performing group) participated in the Gold Coast Multicultural Festival. (Here's a link to last year's performance there.) Tenzin and I then had to rush down to a beautiful home on the ridge above Mullumbimby for one of his "For Tibet with Love" series of fundraising home concerts, where we were unexpectedly joined by the lovely violin of Cye Wood.

Tabla Tarrango at Gold Coast Multicultural Festival - Thejan (12), Shen, Nitin (14),  Tito (16)

 Shen, Tenzin and Cye exploring the sonic sphere. Cye had never heard our songs before which made it all the more a spontaneous and inspired journey.

The view from our home concert stage.

Brisbane Family Success in Tabla Exam

Rhea Ravi (7) and Ritvik Ravi (13) achieved distinctions in PRSSV tabla exam

A brother and sister in Parkinson have achieved distinctions in a London-based tabla exam. Ritvik Ravi (13) and Rhea Ravi (7) received top marks among 12 tabla students from Brisbane and Gold Coast who took the exams held by Pandit Ram Sahai Sangeet Vidyalaya (PRSSV). Rhea Ravi also studies Carnatic vocals under her mother, well-known vocalist Susmitha Ravi, as well as Bharat Natyam dance. Ritvik Ravi has also taken his mother's singing lessons and currently also plays drumkit.

All the other students of the Ashutosh Bhattacharya Memorial Tabla School who took the exams achieved merits. 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. 

The top Brisbane tabla students, Tito Basu (15) and Sanjey Sivaananthan (15) successfully completed grade 6 and will attempt grade 7 when the exams are next held in Brisbane next February. 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 or email shen@ethnosuperlounge.com



CONCERT DATE
Sunday October 16: Queensland Multicultural Festival, Roma St Parklands.  Tabla Tarrango will perform on the Children's Stage from 1245 to 1pm.

   (to be printed in Brisbane Indian Times Oct 2011 edition)

Tabla Tarrango and Tibet2Timbuk2 at Woodford

As you may have read in my previous post, Woodford Folk Festival was huge as usual. As well as playing with Tibet2Timbuk2 (our first time at the festival), this year I was honoured and excited to have my tabla school invited to perform. We performed under the name "Tabla Tarrango" which is also the name my first guru Debu Bhattacharya used for his tabla group performances. My two best tabla students, Tito Basu and Sanjey Sivaananthan, joined me to perform a number of compositions in jhaptaal (10 beats) and teentaal (16 beats). We were joined on harmonium by Joseph Nand and vocals by Sulagna Basu, in a style somewhat inspired by Pt Suresh Talwarkar's new style of tabla solo, incorporating vocal performance in between tabla compositions. The performance was well received and I'm hopeful it will become a yearly event for us. We'll put on an absolutely brilliant show in a few more years!

Tabla Tarrango at Woodford 2010
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Tibet2Timbuk2 at Chai Tent

Tibet2Timbuk2 at Bazaar Stage, where we had brilliant sound, thanks Bazaar sound crew!

Tabla Tarrango @ Krishna Fest

On Sun August 23 my top students and I gave our first public performance, at Krishna Fest, ISKCON's celebrations of Janmastami (Krishna's birthday) at Roma St Parklands. In the tradition of my first guru Debu Bhattacharya, I'm thinking of calling our tabla group Tabla Tarrango. The weather was absolutely beautiful (a slight cooling off from the freakish week of 30+ degrees August winter days) and thousands of festival goers enjoyed a range of entertainment and devotional music, heavy on the kirtans.

I was honoured to have my students invited to play, and so proud of them. We played for about 20 minutes, opening with uthaan, then Arka and I played a kaida, Sam, Sanjay and Jesinthan played a rela, peshkar all together, then some gat kaidas and tukaras one by one, culminating in a powerful tukara all together.

My old friend Soolaba on sitar

Carmela singing kirtan

Diwarkar Mothay and his young singing students

A bit more kirtan

Tabla Tarrango
- Sam Mead, Arka Basu, Shen Flindell, Sanjeyan Sivaananthan, Jesinthan Ketheeswaran

Very proud of my boys