Sand sculpture island on Ganga

A sand island appears in the Ganges a little south of Varanasi in winter and there is a sand sculpture competition each year. Here are some snaps from our visit, 2 days after the competition, so slightly wind-blown.

A scene from the boat trip to the sand sculpture island.

Panoramas

Some more panoramic shots from my new camera (a Sony Cybershot DSC-TX1)... The first is on my balcony in Brisbane, the rest Varanasi.

Taro Tour Part 2 - Bris and Melb sessions

It's been ages since I've blogged, because I've been touring the country with my good friend, a great bansuri player, Taro Terahara. Now at last I can share some of the great moments we've had...

Brissie Sessions:

Taro joined in my weekly session at The Forest, along with ney player (and in fact all-round Persian multi-instrumentalist) Cieavash Arean. This was during Taro's "goggles phase" (see the last post for that story).

Pictured L to R: Marcello, Taro, Tenzin, myself
I have a monthly event called "Global Soul Music" at Core Yoga Studios in West End. For December I decided to make it an "EthnoSuperLounge Xmas Party" and invite all the musicians I've been playing with this year. It was a great night, including: Yani (vocals, harmonium), Marcello (vocals, guitar), Taro (bansuri), Tenzin (vocals, dranyen), myself (tabla), Asim Gorashi (vocals, oud, violin, whistling), Robert Wells (jazz piano), Ravi Wells (jazz guitar), Alicia (mbira) and Velvet (vocals)

Melbourne:
My sister Jacki invited us to Melbourne, mainly to see my family just before Christmas, and also so that I could buy her car. She organised a small concert to help pay our way - unfortunately I don't have any photos of that gig... It turned out to be a rainy day and 3 days before Christmas is always going to be a difficult time to draw a crowd. Anyway, it was nice to show Taro Melbourne, introduce him to a few people there, and share a genuine Aussie family Christmas.

We visited tabla player Glen Kniebeiss and had a great session. Glen's wife Norina is Japanese and they will visit Kyoto in March-April 2008 - I recommend my friends in Japan to check Glen out.

After weeks with the mostly vegetarian folks of Rosecliffe St, Taro really enjoyed the meaty fare of a Flindell Christmas dinner!

Global Soul Music + Rosecliffe photos

On Saturday we had the first edition of my new monthly concert, Global Soul Music. The music was beautiful, the space lovely. This group has an excellent chemistry, bringing together music spanning Sudan through Iran to India.

Just need a bit more community support... Next month, sitar player Saikat Bhattacharya and bhajans with Yani.

Global Soul Music Vol.1 : Shen (tabla), Vijaya Visvanathan (vocal), Menaka Visvanathan (vocal), Cieavash Arean (vocal, tar, oud, daf), Asim Gorashi (vocal, violin, whistling, oud)

There are lots of much nicer photos at the Divine Arts website.

Rosecliffe St
Some snaps from my lovely home...

Akira cooking while Alicia feeds Tiger the cat

Akira, Alicia and Simon. Akira and Simon are both currently in Japan.

Tiger aka Tigga aka Mr Stripey Trousers

Another regular visitor

This week my cousin Ed came up from Sydney. Here he is with my housemate Melissa.

Ed, Mel and Alicia hanging out at Rosecliffe

Our mate Sammy - a great whistle and trumpet player - stops by to relax on the balcony.

The view from our balcony - Brisbane River in the background

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

Last day in Japan, Sydney trip

Last Day in Japan
On my last day in Japan, I went with Taro & Yuriko to a nice sushi restaurant in Chiba-ken. It was also their 10th wedding anniversary. We had some pretty fantastic sushi! One plate of sashimi was particularly fresh - how fresh? The fish it had been cut from was displayed on the plate with a skewer from its tail to its head, and every now and again the tail would twitch! It was bloody good though. :-)

Australia: Winter
I arrived back in Brisbane on July 21, and on July 25 headed to Sydney for a week, meeting a few musicians and hanging out with my cousin Ed.

Sky over The Gap

Sydney sky

Practising with Adrian McNeil (sarod) and Pt. Ram Chandra Suman (tabla) in Sydney

View from my cousin Ed's family home in Bungendore near Canberra

I also met and practised with Colin Berryman (sitar) in Blue Mountains near Sydney

COMING UP
Tomorrow I fly to Melbourne for 10 days, and hopefully there I'll be able to meet lots of musicians and friends too.

More Kyushu concert photos

More photos from my recently completed tour of Kyushu with Hide Iwai...

Playing at a home concert in Fukuoka (last Tuesday) - thanks to Amigo-chan for having us!

Our main concert, at Kumamoto International Hall, last Thursday

Hide @ Kumamoto International Hall - nice smile, hey?

Some people commented that it was really nice that we smiled at each other so much.
(Don't tell anybody - everytime we smiled it's because we made a mistake!)

Part of my tabla solo @ Kumamoto International Hall - something strange going on here, not sure what...

I found Kyushu to be quite spacious compared to other parts of Japan, and the people to be very warm, open and a little wacky. Really nice! It reminded me a bit of Australia. Thanks so much to Hide Iwai for inviting me to Kyushu and organising this tour. We had lots of fun travelling around Kyushu, visiting various onsens (see next post) and meeting really nice people. Thanks also to Chikako-san of Cafe Rinya for giving me a room this week.

Our Kyushu schedule was:

• Mon Jul 2 - arrive Kokura, concert @ Brick Hall in Moji
• Tue Jul 3 - home concert at Amigo's house in Fukuoka
• Wed Jul 4 - bus to Kumamoto, settle at Cafe Rinya
• Thu Jul 5 - concert at Kumamoto International Hall
• Fri Jul 6 - concert at Gallery Ado (candle-lit)
  
• Sat Jul 7 - free concert at Annapurna Farm (organic farming community workshop weekend), Gekkatei Onsen
  
• Sun Jul 8 - concert at Bonga Curry
• Mon Jul 9 - rest at Cafe Rinya
• Tue Jul 10 - visit Mt Aso, Jigoku Onsen, home concert at Makoto's house in Nishihara
• Wed Jul 11 - last onsen visit, back to Rinya
• Thu Jul 12 - shinkansen to Kyoto

Hell Spa

On Tuesday we went for a drive to volcanic Mt Aso and Jigoku Onsen ("Hell Spa")... Here's a Google Map link of the area. Unfortunately it was very cloudy so we couldn't see the volcano, but here's a photo I found on the web. This page has the onsen's official photos. It was an interesting onsen - very sulphurous smell, and several baths separated by short walks. We soaked for about 2 hours all up...

That's not a low cloud, it's steam rising from the mountain

A waterfall on the way to Jigoku Onsen

Me in one of the baths at Jigoku Onsen

Another bath at Jigoku Onsen

Kumamoto: Onsen, rice-fields, rainy season

I've just finished what must be the busiest period of concerts in my life (maybe closely followed by Taro's tour last December). From my round of my concerts in Kansai last week, until my final Kyushu concert on Sunday night, in 11 nights I had 9 concerts, 1 overnight bus trip, and 1 night off. I was pretty tired in the last couple of concerts, but that probably had more to do with post-concert socialising than any energy spent playing music. :-)

My host and concert organiser, sitar player Hide Iwai has all the good concert photos on his camera, so I'll post them when I get a chance in a day or two. For now here are some photos from our trip into countryside Kumamoto on Sunday:

The onsen in Gekkatei Ryokan (click on the link to see their official photos) - really beautiful onsen, this one. The water was a bit slippery and very soft, beautiful garden, nice sauna with tasteful koto music, towels provided and all for 500 yen (A$5) - bloody marvellous!

Outdoor bath at Gekkatei Ryokan

While talking about onsens I should mention a couple of other onsens we've been to this week. First up the Hiagari Onsen in Kita Kyushu - bit expensive at 900 yen, but pretty lush. Very big outdoor area with about 5 different baths, plus another 5 or so baths inside. But the unique thing at Hiagari was the salt-sauna - a big tray of sea-salt in the middle of the sauna, which you rub all over your body. Then yesterday we went to another onsen on the way back from Annapurna Farm (see below), which had a "Penguin Sauna" - a cold sauna! Refrigerated!

Annapurna Farm, where we performed in the farmhouse (peeking out from behind a tree in this photo) as part of a organic farming community activity weekend. Thanks to Ravi-san for inviting us!

It's been raining non-stop since I got to Kyushu - rainy season has come. The long-distance scenery is a bit drab (no mountain views), but the river was pretty powerful. Taken on the drive down from Annapurna Farm.


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5 days, 4 concerts and a picnic

It's the busy end of my Japan tour. My time in Japan is coming to a close but it's going to a new place every day from here on it seems!

Some photos from last 5 days: 4 concerts and a picnic!

Thursday: Kyoto

Thanks to Christophe Rossi and Ayumi for hosting me in Shiga this week.
Their loungeroom, my tabla.

I played with Tadao Ishihama at Mandala Party @ Hati Hati Indonesian Restaurant in Kyoto. Unfortunately for us the sound system and room acoustics weren't well suited to sitar and tabla. I've been loving my tabla sound especially this week, so this was a bit of a downer. Anyway - true professionals, I think we put on a good show.

Mandala & the Tribe @ Hati Hati. Unfortunately Tadao & I had to get back to Osaka so we couldn't stay for Amadoo and Pese Pese (African music).

Friday: Osaka

Performing with Tadao at WORLD　MUSIC　LIVE vol.1 in Osaka. The event was held in a centre for Okinawan culture (hence all the bottles of awamori behind us). Thanks to friends Kazumi and Nobi for coming along! :-)

In Osaka, this is called "blending in"


Saturday: Kyoto

The stage for our concert at Zuiren-ji temple, Kyoto

The altar at Zuiren-ji

Christophe Rossi @ Zuiren-ji.
This was a beautiful concert - lovely setting, many friends, and Christophe's sweet and sincere sitar playing. Thanks again to Christophe, Ayumi and also to Asai-san of Zuiren-ji.

Sunday: Kyoto, night-bus

It was my good friend and old tabla student Alex' birthday and we had a picnic up near Shugakuin Dam in north-east Kyoto. Lots of cute half-Japanese kids.

Monday: Kyushu

I took the night bus to Kyushu and arrived in Kokura, North Kyushu at 6am Monday morning for a concert that night with Hide Iwai. We have 4 more concerts later this week.

Performing with Hide Iwai @ Brick Hall in Moji, North Kyushu

We were joined by Takuya, a final year high school student and Beatles lover. He sang "Rain" and "In My Life" - nice selection, ne.

Hide, post-gig
Brick Hall is a very stylish yet relaxing cafe-bar-live house in the port area of Moji, North Kyushu, in a renovated old beer brewery built of red-brick. Lots of comfy sofas and loads of space. The building reminded me a bit of Calcutta and the interior was reminiscent of Australia. Thanks to Kamura-san for hosting us!

Coming Up: The rest of my Kyushu tour with Hide, another temple concert in Kyoto with Christophe, return to Australia via Tokyo and Bangkok, and visits to Sydney and Melbourne.

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