Night/Morning double header with Gauri Pathare

I had the honour and pleasure of accompanying Mumbai singer Gauri Pathare in two concerts last weekend - "Night Ragas" on Saturday night and then "Morning Ragas" the next morning. Just like my guru-ji used to tell me, I met the artist for the first time on the stage. In the opening piece, Raga Yaman, I had the chance to play vilambit jhoomra taal (a very slow 14 beat taal), which I think I last played in Japan two years ago, with Tim Hoffman. As usual I'm terrible at keeping track of which ragas were performed - they included Jogkauns and Bhairavi in the night concert and Ahir Bhairav in the morning - but of course I kept track of all the taals - vilambit jhoomra, a wide range of speeds of teentaal, vilambit and drut rupak, drut ektaal and various kehervas. Harmonium accompaniment was given by Joseph Abhay Nand. Thanks to Swara Mohini for organising the concerts.

Night Ragas

Morning Ragas

Swara Mohini Strings of India photos

On Saturday I took part in two separate concerts for the Indian community in Brisbane. First up I played in Toowong with sitar player Sudha Manian for an Indian Senior Citizens Day event. I know Sudha is a subscriber to this blog, so my apologies for not remembering to organise a photo, Sudha! But here's a photo of some girls doing a Bharat Natyam performance there:

After the concert in Toowong, my companion Tenzin and I zipped over to Sunnybank for a concert for Swara Mohini, an Indian classical music cultural association. We had a bit of trouble finding the Sunnybank Community Hall and stumbled onto another Indian Senior Citizens Day event in the nearby school hall. Wrong event, but we had a delicious free meal and I met a parent who may be able to organise weekly kids tabla lessons for me in Sunnybank. The Swara Mohini concert was called "Strings of India":

Rajyashree Josyer Shrikanth (Veena) with Arthavan Selvanathan on Mridangam
Arthavan is about 15 years old and an excellent mridingam player!

Shrabani Choudhury (Sitar) with Shen

Shrabani Choudhury and Rajyashree Josyer Shrikanth