Public concert April 18 kicks off conference on religion and music of Indian Ocean cultures

Public concert April 18 kicks off conference on religion and music of Indian Ocean culturesApril 15, 2008Sara Millersemortim@syr.edu

As part of the “Music Moves Religion: Performance Networks in Indian Ocean Cultures” three-day conference this week at Syracuse University, Prabha Atre, an internationally acclaimed singer and composer of Indian classical music, will perform a free concert at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 18, at the Everson Museum of Art in downtown Syracuse.

Atre is one of the finest living exponents of the Kirana performance style, noted for its tonal purity and improvisation. Atre has received two of the most coveted awards from the government of India: Padmashree and Padmabhushan. Her musical compositions are known for their originality, poetic beauty and melodic intricacy.

The “Music Moves Religion” conference is presented by the Cultures and Religions Cluster of the Central New York Humanities Corridor and is organized by Tazim R. Kassam, chair of SU’s Department of Religion. The principal program coordinator of the Religion and Culture Cluster of the CNY Humanities Corridor is Ann Grodzins Gold, professor of religion and anthropology and director of SU’s South Asia Center.

Created in 2006, the Humanities Corridor is supported by a three-year, $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded to SU to collaborate with Cornell University and the University of Rochester (including the Eastman School of Music) to connect teaching and research among these three leading institutions.

For more information on the conference and the concert, contact Juliana Finucane at jkfinuca@syr.edu. An additional public concert scheduled for Saturday, April 19, has been cancelled. For the conference program, visit http://musicmovesreligion.com/.