NINETY-THIRD SEASON
Friday, October 13, 2023, at 8:00
ANOUSHKA SHANKAR
Anoushka Shankar Sitar
Arun Ghosh Clarinet
Sarathy Korwar Drums
Pirashanna Thevarajah Percussion
Tom Farmer Bass
The program will be announced from the stage. It includes music from Anoushka Shankar’s new mini album, Chapter I: Forever, For Now. Produced by Grammy-winning singer Arooj Aftab, it features the masterful Nils Frahm, at whose celebrated Funkhaus Studio the music was recorded. The program also dips into Shankar’s extensive and varied back catalog, featuring new arrangements of music from her albums, including Traveller, Traces of You, and Land of Gold.
There will be no intermission.
WBEZ Chicago and India Tribune are media partners for this program.
Anoushka Shankar Sitar
To read a list of Anoushka Shankar’s accomplishments is to read many life stories in one: masterful sitarist, film composer, impassioned activist, the youngest and first female recipient of a British House of Commons Shield, the first Indian musician to perform live or serve as presenter at the Grammy Awards with nine nominations under her belt, the first Grammy-nominated Indian woman, and one of the first female composers to have been added onto the UK A-level music syllabus.
Shankar began studying sitar and Indian classical music at age nine under the tutelage of her father, Pandit Ravi Shankar: a master of the instrument and a figure without whom twentiethcentury music would not have been what it was. Making her professional debut at thirteen, she began touring worldwide alongside her father. At eighteen, she embarked on a touring career that has taken her from legendary jazz cafes to iconic symphony halls and festival stages in front of 40,000 people.
Anoushka Shankar has collaborated with diverse artists, including Herbie Hancock, Patti Smith, Joshua Bell, Gold Panda, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Shankar’s Grammy-nominated Rise formed the blueprint for her intensive solo career, and her album Breathing
Underwater envisioned a sonic world of ragas, bright analog soundscapes, contemplative electronics, and guest turns by Ravi Shankar, Sting, and Anoushka’s half-sister, Norah Jones.
Signing to Deutsche Grammophon in 2011 marked the start of a decade of unbridled fertility, producing several Grammy-nominated albums. Deep meditations of love and loss on Traces of You nestle against the quietly triumphant return to pure raga improvisations on Home; the historical relationship between Indian classical music and Spanish flamenco is explored on Traveller, while the current global refugee crisis informed the rallying cry of Land of Gold, and Love Letters reveals Alev Lenz’s hypnotic presence.
As a composer, Shankar considers her most challenging work scoring the British Film Institute’s restoration of Shiraz, one of the first major Indian silent films, and performing the music live at screenings. Recently, she co-composed the score to Mira Nair’s A Suitable Boy.
Shankar is an activist, outspoken about her experiences as a survivor of child abuse and supporting campaigns such as One Billion Rising. She works with UNHCR and Help Refugees to raise funds and awareness for the refugee crisis. In 2020 she was announced as the inaugural president of the F-List, a UK database created to help bridge the gender gap in music, and as an ambassador for The Walk: an international artistic project supporting refugees.
PHOTO BY LAURA LEWISArun Ghosh Clarinet
Arun Ghosh is a British Asian clarinetist, bandleader, and composer.
Twice awarded Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards, Ghosh leads his own ensembles, touring nationally and internationally. He has released five albums on Camoci Records: Northern Namaste, Primal Odyssey, A South Asian Suite, But Where Are You Really From, and Seclused in Light.
Ghosh regularly composes for theater and film, his most recent composition being the eleven-song setting The Canticle of the Sun for chamber jazz ensemble and voices, based on a poem by St. Francis of Assisi. Since its premiere in May 2022, the work has been performed in churches, cathedrals, and other sacred spaces and will tour Europe in 2024 to mark the 800th anniversary of St. Francis’s sublime poem. With an open-eared aesthetic and philosophy, Ghosh’s musical style embodies a multi-era, multi-genre approach in which numerous strands of jazz join forces with a myriad of musical influences. Subtly and intuitively bringing together South Asian music and jazz culture, Ghosh is now considered a renowned innovator of modern Indo-jazz.
Sarathy Korwar Drums
Born in the United States and raised in India, Korwar began playing tabla at age ten, studying with Rajeev Devasthali and later, after moving to London, with Sanju Sahai.
He has established himself as one of the most original and compelling voices in the UK jazz scene, collaborating with musicians such as Shabaka Hutchings, Arun Ghosh, and Hieroglyphic Being, as well as groups Penya and Ill Considered. He has toured with Kamasi Washington, Anoushka Shankar, Yussef Kamaal, and Moses Boyd.
Korwar’s daring debut album, Day to Day, fused the traditional folk music of the sidi community in India with contemporary jazz and electronics, while the following, My East Is Your West, is a unique blend of London’s new jazz talent with Indian classical instrumentation.
His politically charged album More Arriving incorporates rappers from Mumbai and New Delhi, spoken word, and Korwar’s own Indian classical and jazz performances, earning him the Best Independent Album at the 2020 AIM Awards and MOJO’s Jazz Album of the Year. It was also shortlisted for Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards, Jazz FM Awards, and Songlines Awards.
Korwar’s third studio album, the Indofuturist manifesto KALAK, celebrates the rich South Asian culture of music and literature and was placed second in the Guardian’s Best Global Albums of 2022. In 2023 KALAK won the Songlines Award for Best Album.
PHOTOS BY EMILE HOLBA, RISHABAH SOOD Pirashanna ThevarajahPercussion
Pirashanna
Thevarajah is a senior disciple of Vidwan Sri M. Balachandar and is recognized by the world music and Indian classical community as a highly versatile percussionist with a strong command of various instruments, especially mridangam, kanjira, ghatam, and morsing. He is equally versed in the art of konnakol (Indian spoken rhythm).
Thevarajah joined Pandit Ravi Shankar’s world tours until his final concerts in India, America, and Europe as an integral ensemble member and continues to perform frequently with Anoushka Shankar. He has performed and recorded regularly with many musicians from the Indian classical and contemporary world, including the late M. Balamuralikrishna, late Mandolin Shrinivas, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Aruna Sairam, Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh, dancer Akram Khan, and many others. Thevarajah has played in the world’s most famous venues, including the Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Hollywood Bowl.
Tom Farmer BassTom Farmer is a busy member of the British music scene, performing with the award-winning quartet Empirical and many other diverse
ensembles. He started his musical career as a pianist and electric bass player before focusing on double bass, graduating with honors from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2006.
Farmer tours with Empirical throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America, winning multiple awards, including MOBO Best Jazz Act 2010. With the group, he co-conceived and realized the UK’s first Pop-Up Jazz Lounge, and supported by the Art’s Council England, he delivered the project six times in the UK and Berlin.
As a bassist, pianist, and vocalist, Farmer is a valued sideman, often performing and recording with Joe Stilgoe Trio, Anoushka Shankar, Ivo Neame, Sarah McKenzie, Manu Delago, Dave Newton, Ant Law, Kansas Smitty’s, Marco Marconi, and Clare Teal, among others. Working as a producer with singer Atila, Farmer co-wrote and directed the widely toured King for a Day: The Nat King Cole Story, also appearing as bassist and singer. As a composer, Farmer has a thirteen-year catalog of works recorded with Empirical, including works for string quartet and jazz ensemble. Farmer recently became a full-time professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, lecturing in jazz, double bass, and ensemble techniques.
PHOTOS BY AKIN AWORAN, KATY DILLON