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.

Nabanita Chowdhury + BSQ Durga Puja

On Oct 15 I was invited to accompany Indian classical vocalist Nabanita Chowdhury at a home concert in St Lucia. Rahim Zullah organised the concert, gave accompaniment on harmonium, and also sang a couple of ghazals at the end of the night. Many thanks to Rubina and Mervyn for providing their home as the venue for this lovely concert.

The following evening I attended the Bengali Society of Queensland (BSQ)'s Durga Puja cultural function, in support of two of my students who performed. Young Diptanu Debroy gave a short tabla solo, for which I accompanied on harmonium. My senior student Tito Basu gave tabla accompaniment for many of the other acts.

Tibet2Timbuk2 acoustic concert in Ocean Shores

Tibet2Timbuk2 had a lovely little show at my regular Ocean Shores home concert venue, Paul Kimmel's "Temple of Melodious Sound" last weekend. Unfortunately due to a number of factors - the cold weather, many people going to the Dreaming Festival, late organisation and lazy promotion - the audience was shall we say "exclusive", but regardless the natural sound in Paul's place is marvellous and that exclusive audience were very appreciative of our music. It was also a really nice chance to jam with some of my Indian classical friends, Armando Ornano (bansuri) and Tahir Qawwali (vocal). Yuki (who prepared the atmosphere with some beautiful mantras to start) took a few videos too, so here's Crane Song: Sorry about the video quality - the lights were very dim.

Tahir and his partner Barbi treated us to some Punjabi geet.

Special guest bansuri player Armando really slotted in well.

T + S 2009 pt7 - Canberra/Sydney

After Taro, Sangeet and I completed our 5 days in Melbourne, we headed off to Canberra for a concert hosted by the India Australia Association of Canberra. We then wrapped up the tour with a home concert in Sydney hosted by Sydhwaney Sounds of Sydney and finally a concert at Yogaways in Terrigal, about 90 minutes north of Sydney. Many many thanks to all the organisers and hosts!

Autumn colours in Canberra - while the warm winters in Brisbane are really lovely, we don't get colours like these!

On the first day in Canberra we played in the Australian National University's School of Music for large audience of music students. No photos of the show though sorry.

We were absolutely blessed to be able to stay in my uncle's house about 45 minutes outside Canberra. This photo, though blurry, does capture quite a surreal view. The white lines in the distance are power generation windmills.

Taro and Sangeet practising at my uncle's house.

Shen, Sangeet and Taro performing in Belconnen Theatre, Canberra

Our Sydney concert was opened by the host's daughter Sunanda Sharma on flute and Surinder Jeet Singh on tabla.

Shen, Sangeet and Taro performing at a home concert in Sydney. This was an excellent concert and I was very happy to have Sydney last on the tour schedule so we were well warmed up for the very knowledgeable audience there. This was my first Indian classical concert in Sydney! Hopefully we made a good impression....

Sydney city

Taro tells me that he invariably sees a rainbow at the end of a good tour

Sydney Harbour Bridge

The final concert in Yogaways, Terrigal

Sangeet left us here to return to India via Sydney. Thanks very much for coming on this amazing journey with us Sangeet! We learnt a lot and had lots of great experiences, and made a lot of excellent connections for the future.

Next, the final stage of our journey.

Manose - Bansuri player from Nepal

Last Friday I accompanied Nepali bansuri player Manose in a home concert in Ocean Shores near Byron Bay. Manose is currently touring Australia with satsang stars Deva Premal and Miten. This was the first time he and I had played together and it went quite well. That is the beauty of Indian Classical Music - we could meet and play immediately without rehearsal and there was good chemistry. His style is very sweet, playful and both healing and entertaining. Thanks very much to Paul Kimmel for hosting us and organising such a lovely concert!

Manose and I are playing again this Friday in the Sri Saileshwara Sai Baba Temple, Virginia (north Brisbane), before he returns to Nepal on Saturday.