[ voice + mridangam barrel drum + tanpura drone lutes ] with Gautam Tejas Ganeshan & Anantha R. Krishnan.
Commissioned in 2009 by the San Francisco Foundation, this group explores the ecstatic edge of contemporary Indian classical music. With an all-acoustic, chamber-music focus, rooted in the Sangati Center’s intimate aesthetic (SF’s Indian classical music art-house), the group performs new music from within an old tradition. Vocalist Gautam Tejas Ganeshan [Sangati Center founder, former member of SF-based carnatic-jazz ensemble VidyA] frees carnatic vocal virtuosity to access its angular outer reaches, and mridangist Anantha R. Krishnan [Miles From India Tour 2008, grandson of renowned carnatic artist Palghat Raghu] contributes an unflinching, intelligent intensity on the mridangam, South India’s barrel-drum with a sophisticated technique and powerful repertoire.
From the 7.17.2008 SFJAZZ Fall Season Bulletin.
“An opportunity to hear Sangati Center founder Gautam Tejas Ganeshan’s thoughtful, ecstatic vocal style in a chamber concert […] joined by one of the Miles From India tour’s energetic young Indian classical drumming talents, Anantha R. Krishnan [the Chennai Music Academy’s 2008 Best Mridangist]. New music from an old tradition, in an intimate, acoustic listening room in San Francisco’s Indian classical music art house.”