VPA, South Asia Center present evening of classical Indian and Indo-Japanese crossover music March 29

VPA, South Asia Center present evening of classical Indian and Indo-Japanese crossover music March 29March 14, 2007SU News ServicesSUnews@syr.edu

The College of Visual and Performing Arts and the South Asia Center of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University will co-sponsor an evening of classical Indian and Indo-Japanese crossover music March 29. The performance features shakuhachi player Timothy M. Hoffman and tabla player Mayookh Bhaumik at 7 p.m. in Maxwell Auditorium. It is free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in Irving Garage.

The shakuhachi, played by Hoffman, is a thick, vertical bamboo flute of Japan with deep historical associations with Buddhist monks and the practice of meditation. An extremely subtle instrument, the shakuhachi can be difficult to play, but a good player can produce an incredibly wide spectrum of sound colors, ornaments and slides. The tabla, played by Bhaumik, is a set of two small hand drums of northern India. Like the shakuhachi, it can also produce a wide pallet of sounds that are combined into complex, cyclic patterns and improvisations, all of which are also “spoken” through a corresponding drum language.

“Interestingly, the rise of the Indian and East Asian economies over the last decade has been accompanied by an internationalization of Indian classical music beyond Europe and the United States to the countries of East Asia, especially Japan,” says Carol Babiracki, an ethnomusicologist in the Department of Fine Arts in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences. “The younger generations of Indian musicians do not feel as constrained by the narrative of `authenticity’ as the older. They are moving Indian classical music in new directions and experimenting with new, unique fusions such as this one — musically beautiful and satisfying, thoroughly rooted traditionally and free-floating globally at the same time.”

Hoffman, an American musician, performs Japanese and Indian classical music, and has spent years in both countries. He is a senior performing and creative artist fellow of the American Institute of Indian Studies and director of the Indo-Japanese Music Exchange Association.

Bhaumik, who is based in New Jersey, began publicly performing on the tabla at the age of five. At age four, he was acknowledged as a child prodigy by North Indian classical musician Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Mayookh has returned to India on many occasions to train under noted tabla players. He became a studio musician at age 12.

For more information, contact Jishnu Shankar at the South Asia Center at (315) 443-2553 or jshankar@maxwell.syr.edu.