SAT MAR 21 2015
ZakirCeltic Hussain’s Connections CHAN CENTRE FOR THE PERFORM ING ARTS AT UBC 1
“I had all these preconceived ideas of what
we would do and how we would make it work. But the more I think about this the more I’ve come to feel that we’re musicians. We’re the same the world over. If you put us in a room together, we’ll make music…There’s no meter that hasn’t been played, no rhythm that hasn’t been composed. It’s the musicians’ own qualities that allow them to make music different – that’s what’s exciting about this project for me. It’s fresh music sparked by the humanity of those involved.”
Patsy Reid 2
- Zakir Hussain on the Celtic Connections collaboration
Rakesh Chaurasia
Zakir Hussain’s Celtic Connections: The Pulse of the World Presented by the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
Concert
8:00pm, Chan Shun Concert Hall
Zakir Hussain tabla
Rakesh Chaurasia bamboo flute
Fraser Fifield flute/pipes
Jean-Michel Veillon flute
Ganesh Rajagopalan violin
Charlie McKerron fiddle
Patsy Reid fiddle
Tony Byrne guitar
John Joe Kelly bodhrĂĄn
Set list will be announced from the stage.
There will be one 20 minute intermission.
Please remember to turn off your cell phones, and note that photography and recording is not permitted. Thank you!
3
PHOTO: SUSANA MILLMAN
4
Zakir Hussain Zakir Hussain is highly esteemed both in the field of percussion and in the music world at large as an international phenomenon and one of the greatest musicians of our time. A classical tabla virtuoso of the highest order, his consistently brilliant and exciting performances have established him as a national treasure in his own country, India, and as one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors. Widely considered a chief architect of the contemporary world music movement, Zakir’s contribution to world music has been unique, with many historic collaborations, including Shakti, which he founded with John McLaughlin and L. Shankar, Remember Shakti, the Diga Rhythm Band, Making Music, Planet Drum with Mickey Hart, Tabla Beat Science, Sangam with Charles Lloyd and Eric Harland, and recordings and performances with artists as diverse as George Harrison, Yo Yo Ma, Joe Henderson, Van Morrison, Airto Moreira, Pharoah Sanders, Billy Cobham, Mark Morris, Rennie Harris, the Kodo drummers and The Grateful Dead. His extraordinary contribution to the music world was honoured in April 2009, with four widely heralded and sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall’s Artist Perspective series. A multiple GRAMMY Award winner and the recipient of countless accolades, Zakir has received titles from the Indian, American, and French governments, and “best percussionist” awards from significant music journals. He has scored music for many films, events, and productions including the 1996 Summer Olympics. He has both composed and performed with Alonzo King’s LINES ballet (for which he received two Isadora Duncan Awards), Yo Yo Ma’s “Silk Road Project” with choreographer Mark Morris, and, with his oft-times collaborators and band-mates Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer, with both the Nashville and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, under the baton of Leonard Slatkin. Zakir’s second concerto, Concerto for Four Soloists, a special commission for the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C.), was performed at Kennedy Center in March 2011, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. The first concerto he has composed for tabla will premiere in Mumbai in the fall of 2015 with the Symphony Orchestra of India.
“Music in itself is the greatest positive message that you could ever give to people. Music’s energy is very positive – it’s a pristine and pure experience. If you could just for a moment close all the windows and doors and connections to the negative energy in this world and just concentrate on the music for a little bit — for those fleeting moments all the cares and worries of the world just sort of dissolve and leave you. You come out of a concert hall or even listening to a record in your living room rejuvenated and able to face the world again. In that sense, music is one of the greatest sources of positive energy.” – Zakir Hussain (Excerpt from an interview with The American Bazaar, March 2015)
5
Rakesh Chaurasia bamboo flute As is so often the case in India, Rakesh is following in the family tradition; his uncle, Pandit (Master) Hariprasad Chaurasia is among the icons of his generation, and Rakesh is his most accomplished disciple. He has performed with a broad spectrum of the great musicians of India, as well as Western musicians like Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, and Joshua Redman. He has received many important awards in India, most recently the Pannalal Ghosh Puraskar in 2013. He has taken part in many prominent festivals, including WOMAD in Athens and the Festival of St. Denis in Paris, and was invited to conclude the 24-hour live BBC Radio broadcast celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee. His special gift is the ability to preserve the purity and intensity of the flute in the midst of many instruments. The Bansuri, the bamboo Indian flute, is a magical instrument that is so ancient it is part of the mythology of many cultures; Krishna, Kokopelli, and Pan all played it.
Fraser Fifield flute/pipes One of the more distinctive pipers in Scotland, Fraser is an uncommonly wide-ranging multi-instrumentalist, performing on various pipes, whistles, the soprano saxophone, Bulgarian Kaval, and occasionally on percussion. Perhaps that variety is why, as Jazzwise put it, he is “an outstanding product of the Scottish jazz-folk scene who at one moment can blow a low whistle like Charlie Parker steaming his way through ‘Ko-Ko’ and at the next knock out an air on a sax like a Highland traditionalist.” He’s released five albums of original music on his own Tanar label, has been commissioned by a wide range of festivals, the Scottish Arts Council, and the BBC, and performed from the U.S. to Azerbaijan with groups like Capercaillie and Afro-Celt Sound System, among many others.
6
PHOTO: CON KELLEHER
Jean-Michel Veillon flute Though Celtic culture is associated with Scotland and Ireland, the region of France known as Brittany is Celtic as well. Jean-Michel Veillon was first a dancer and then a bombard (old type of doublereed oboe, typical of Brittany) player in his teens before moving on to the transverse wooden flute. His first influences were Irish, but he soon created distinct articulation techniques that reflected his Breton heritage. After years of touring the U.S. with groups like Kornog, Pennou Skoulm, Den, and Barzaz, he has become renowned for introducing the wooden flute into Breton folk music. In the words of the Welsh/British folk magazine Taplas, “If you have any interest in the flute, folk or otherwise, Jean-Michel Veillon’s recordings are, like Matt Molloy’s, indispensable.”
Ganesh Rajagopalan violin Violin entered Indian music perhaps 200 years ago, and in that time few have become more distinguished than Ganesh Rajagopalan. In the Indian tradition, he began his studies young, and was performing by the age of seven. He became famous in a duo with his brother Kumaresh, but has played extensively with a “who’s who” of Indian musicians over the years. He has worked with many greats, from Zakir Hussain to the Oscar-winning Bollywood music director A.R. Rahman to the legendary John McLaughlin.
Charlie McKerron fiddle Charlie McKerron was born in London and spent time in Africa before his family returned to his father’s homeland of Scotland when he was five. By the age of 12 he was winning fiddle competitions, and after completing school he came to prominence as a member of Capercaillie, a traditional Celtic band from the Argyll area of Western Scotland. It began in a purely acoustic vein, but over the years achieved considerable fame by experimenting with various elements of fusion – funk bass, synthesizers, and the like. Charlie has also achieved acclaim for his ability to write new songs – “Bulgarian Red,” for instance - that have been adopted as part of the Scottish folk canon. 7
Patsy Reid fiddle Patsy Reid is undoubtedly the most in-demand traditional fiddle player in Scotland. Just as she was finishing college (a 1st Class Honours degree from Strathclyde University), she co-founded Breabach, which was nominated as the best Folk Band by the BBC Radio 2 at their 2011 Folk Awards. Soon after she began working with various groups, including the celebrated Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell, Dougie Maclean, and Kylie Minogue, and in the studio with a passel of projects. At the 2012 Olympic Festival she fell in with Zakir Hussain, and since then has visited India four times, collaborating with various South Asian musicians. Her percussive chopping style will be a prominent part of the performance.
Tony Byrne guitar A Dubliner, Tony has focused on traditional Irish music since leaving college in 1999, so his work with Matt Molloy and Lunasa will not be surprising. But he’s also crossed into somewhat different territory to play with Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, the American dobro master Jerry Douglas, banjo king Béla Fleck, and the classical violinist Nicola Benedetti. In addition to college teaching credentials in Dublin, he has worked with the Galway Arts Festival and has been a cast member of the award-winning play Trad, which has toured to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as well as Australia.
John Joe Kelly bodhrán
8
England’s The Guardian said of John Joe that he was “…surely the greatest living bodhrán player” alive, which pretty much covers it. He is certainly one of the most sought-after bodhrán players on the folk music scene today. He is a member of Rook and the Mike McGoldrick Band, among others. Although a stalwart of the traditional scene, he is constantly expanding the boundaries of what one can get out a simple drum. In recent years he has been involved in many world music collaborations, with musicians varying from Tim O’Brien and Kate Rusby to Don Tyminsk, and now Zakir Hussain.
Exploring the role of the arts and artists in society. chancentre.com/connects
Zakir Hussain and the Evolving Tradition of Tabla Music By Eshantha Peiris As part of a new initiative, the Chan Centre is working with the UBC School of Music’s Department of Ethnomusicology to engage students in writing short pieces connecting our presentations to pertinent ideas and concepts in ethnomusicology. Here, graduate student Eshantha Peiris writes about the evolving tradition of tabla music. An excerpt of this article can be found below. As well as studying ethnomusicology, Eshantha performs with the bands Thriloka, Båliphonics, and Serendib Sorcerers. He recently released an album of solo piano music, entitled Global Rhythms Reimagined. What we know of today as “Hindustani classical music” has its roots in the North Indian feudal palaces of the British colonial era. The decline of feudal patronage in the early 1900s, coupled with the advent of recording technology and the democratization of Indian society, saw many court musicians having to adjust from a secluded lifestyle dedicated to music to having to meet the entertainment expectations of the public concert hall. Amplified performances of shorter duration with greater musical variety, innovation, and virtuosity became the norm, though they still retained a balance between fixed and improvised musical elements. A global demand for Indian music in the 1960s – driven by a western appetite for an exoticized Orient – spurred further changes to the genre, with the emphasis shifting from sung devotional content to purely instrumental music. The expanding market for “world music” in the 1980s coincided with an increase in deliberate “fusion music” projects, which lead to further transformations in the performance styles of North Indian instruments. Tabla icon Zakir Hussain’s own stylistic heritage (the “Punjab gharana”: a teacherstudent lineage of oral learning), while steeped in tradition, has been at the forefront of innovation throughout the recent history of tabla-playing. Inheriting the complex rhythmic vocabulary of the pakhawaj drum, tablists of this tradition were well-equipped to elevate the status of the tabla from an accompanying drum to a recognized solo instrument in the 1940s. And since the end of the 20th century, Hussain himself has spearheaded collaborations with jazz, rock, electronica, Carnatic, Japanese, and – most recently – Celtic musicians, pushing the geographical and musical boundaries of tabla music, and in the process helping to establish the tabla as a transglobal cultural phenomenon. Find the full article with detailed footnotes online at chancentre.com/blog 9
Exploring the role of the arts and artists in society. chancentre.com/connects Stefan Cihelka
Neelamjit Dhillon
Tarun Nayar
Q&A With Students of Zakir Hussain
10
On the occasion of tonight’s performance, we asked Vancouver-based students of Zakir Hussain to talk about their experiences with the influential tabla master. Here is a selection of quotations from the interviews we conducted with Zakir’s former percussion students Tarun Nayar, Stefan Cihelka, and Neelamjit Dhillan, all of whom are now pursuing successful professional careers in music through touring, teaching and performance. To read the full Q&As, visit the Chan Centre Blog: chancentre.com/blog.
What was it about tabla music that drew you in? What do you love about it? Stefan Cihelka: Through focused practice and study of repertoire, I discovered that tabla was a complete musical expression for a percussionist: language, poetry, math, and musicality. Tarun Nayar: My father is Punjabi, so I started learning as a small child. As I grew up I began to appreciate the depth of the world of tabla. Once you’re hooked, you’re in for life. Neelamjit Dhillon: My parents wanted me to learn tabla as a means of staying connected to the country that they left to come to Canada and also so that I not grow up too ‘westernized’. I fell in love with the sound of the instrument immediately.
How did you come to know Zakir Hussain? How was he inspired you or influenced your own music? Stefan: After my first trip to study with Abba Ji [Zakir’s father, Alla Rakha] in India, I heard there was a concert of Zakir Ji’s in Seattle, so I drove down to see him. He told me he would be teaching in the summer at the University of Washington, and that I should join the class. So that summer I drove down to Seattle every week for classes with him, and it was there that Zakir Ji became a teacher, friend and elder brother of sorts. Tarun: When I was 25 I travelled to Bombay for six months to learn at Zakir Ji’s family’s school. It changed my life. I have never had a teacher so intuitive or supportive as he is. His mastery is so deep that he can truly reach inside you and make you a better player. I’ve been learning with him ever since. Neelamjit: I came to know of Zakir Hussain’s workshop in California and was permitted to learn there as I had studied in the same stylistic tradition. Meeting and learning from him has changed every aspect of my life. He is not only a musician of the highest caliber, a master teacher, but also an amazingly humble human being with a big heart.
Can you share your favourite lesson or revelation that came from studying under Zakir Hussain? Stefan: The most important one is self-discovery through your relationship with tabla, but there are many challenging compositions [Zakir Ji] has taught over the past 20 years that have the complexity and beauty of a fine Persian carpet. I treasure these as rare gems. Tarun: More than a specific lesson, Zakir Ji has taught me what it is to be a good teacher. What mastery looks like, and how it never comes with ego, but always with an openness and childlike ‘beginner’ mind. He has taught me the meaning of inspiration - he literally breathes creativity into his students. I feel very blessed to learn with him. Neelamjit: There is nothing that can compare to listening him play in the same room as you. Hearing his sound and balance on the instrument, hearing him recite the rhythms, seeing how he expresses the music through his facial expressions and the movement of his body; every time I see him play, teach or perform, it is a revelation. He makes the most complicated rhythms seem simple and makes you feel like you’re capable of the same mastery. Even though you know deep inside that isn’t true, the feeling of possibility is invigorating and keeps all of the students inspired and continually striving to be better.
11
UBC School of Music Fanfares The fanfare performed in the lobby prior to this concert (7:30pm and 7:45pm) was commissioned by the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts as part of an ongoing partnership with the UBC School of Music and their composition students and performers.
Alap / Jig “This modest fanfare for Zakir Hussain’s ‘Celtic Connections’ aims to give not only a respectful nod to his incredible virtuosity, but also seeks to acknowledge all of the incredible and inspiring work that he has done for cross-cultural collaboration on stages around the world.
This piece begins with an alap, the meterless North Indian form typically used to begin a performance, and from there quickly transforms into a rhythmic Celtic reel. The grounding factor is pitch; one of my previous teachers, Dinuk Wijeratne, kindly directed me years ago to a wonderful textbook which catalogues 74 of the Hindustani ragas; I’ve selected one of these as a structural unifier. A raga is more than just a scale, however; both mood and the treatment of the pitches gives it a richer and more fascinating identity, all of which made it tremendously rewarding to explore compositionally. ” – Lucas Oickle, composer
Ben Thauland trumpet Nick Robson trumpet Theresa Lei horn
Kevin Lin trombone Jon Yenta tuba
Upcoming Events at the Chan Centre Full details at chancentre.com Mar 25 at 8pm: UBC Band and Chamber Ensembles – Favourites Old and New Presented by the UBC School of Music. FREE.
March 28 at 7:30pm: Spring Gala Concert Presented by the Canada-China Cultural Development Association and Stage One Academy Inc.
Apr 9 at 7:30pm: Masque: The Nu:BC Collective Presented by the Nu:BC Collective in partnership with the Chan Centre as part of the Radius series
Apr 10 + 11 at 8pm: University Singers, UBC Choral Union and UBC Symphony Orchestra Presented by the UBC School of Music Apr 12 at 7pm: Gilberto Gil (SOLD OUT) Presented by the Chan Centre Apr 17 at 7:30pm + Apr 19 at 2:30pm: Masque: Turning Point Ensemble Presented by the Turning Point Ensemble in partnership with the Chan Centre as part of the Radius series
Apr 24 at 7:30pm + Apr 25 at 2:30pm: Masque: musica intima Presented by musica intima in partnership with the Chan Centre as part of the Radius series
Apr 24 + 25 at 8pm: VSO – Jeffrey Kahane Presented by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as part of their Classical Traditions series at the Chan Centre
Apr 26 at 7pm: Lila Downs Presented by the Chan Centre
LILA DOWNS
May 1 at 8pm: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Presented by Early Music Vancouver as part of their Chan Centre Concert Series
May 9 at 8pm: Wu Man and the Shanghai Quartet Presented by the Chan Centre
Tell us what you think! We want to hear from you. Please visit chancentre.com/feedback and let us know about your experience tonight. 13
The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC Joyce Hinton Cameron McGill Jazel Argente Carl Armstrong Wendy Atkinson Brad Danyluk Kara Gibbs David Humphrey Beng Khoo Flora Lew Glenda Makela Trevor Mangion Claire Mohun Christine Offer George Pereira Andrew Riter Nadia Roberts Lyndsey Roberts
Co-Managing Director Co-Managing Director Administrative & Rentals Assistant Events & Customer Service Manager Programming & Rentals Manager Head Audio Technician Marketing & Communications Manager Production Manager Operations Clerk Financial Coordinator Financial & Programming Clerk Ticket Operations Manager Marketing & Communications Coordinator Artistic Presenting Manager Production Clerk Head Lighting Technician Events & Front of House Coordinator Ticket Office Supervisor
Members of Cupe 2950 Front of House, Stage, and Ticketing Staff Megan Barnabe Tessa Cernik Valentina Montilla
Administration Assistant, Work Learn Student Marketing & Communications Assistant, Work Learn Student Artistic Presentations Assistant, Work Learn Student
Administration Office T: 604.822.9197 E: chan.centre@ubc.ca Ticket Office chancentre.com I
T: 604.822.2697 E: chan.tickets@ubc.ca /chan.centre.ubc I
@ChanCentre I
/ChanCentreUBC
Graphic Design by Copilot Design I Media Relations by Laura Murray Public Relations
The Chan Centre would like to thank our 2014/2015 series sponsors: The Chan Endowment Fund and the UBC Faculty of Arts
14
The city’s top vocal and instrumental ensembles weave elements of medieval courtly entertainment, into playful concerts that explore the full spectrum of sound. The Nu:BC Collective Thu April 9 2015 at 7:30pm Turning Point Ensemble Fri April 17 2015 at 7:30pm & Sun April 19 2015 at 2:30pm musica intima Fri April 24 2015 at 7:30pm & Sat April 25 2015 at 2:30pm Telus Studio Theatre, Chan Centre at UBC I Tickets and info at chancentre.com/radius
A Sound Experience. Gilberto Gil Sun Apr 12 2015 (SOLD OUT) Lila Downs Sun Apr 26 2015 Wu Man and the Shanghai Quartet Sat May 9 2015
Sponsored by:
Tickets and info:
chancentre.com