CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS

Sunday, March 23, 2014, 7pm Zellerbach Hall

Zakir Hussain & Masters of Percussion

with

Zakir Hussain Selvaganesh Vinayakram & Steve Smith Western Dilshad Khan Deepak Bhatt Vijay Chavan dholki

and special guest

Antonia Minnecola Kathak dancer

PROGRAM

Tonight’s program will be announced from the stage. There will be one intermission.

Cal Performances’ – season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS

The foremost disciple of his father, the leg- endary Ustad Allarakha, Mr. Hussain was a child prodigy who began his professional career at the age of twelve and had toured internation- ally with great success by the age of 18. He has been the recipient of many awards, grants and honors, including Padma Bhushan (2002), Padma Shri (1988), the Akademi Award (1991), Kalidas Samman (2006), the 1999 National Heritage Fellowship Award, the Bay Area Isadora Duncan Award (1998–1999), and Grammy Awards in 1991 and 2009 for Best Album for Planet and Global Drum Project, both collaborations with . His music and extraordinary con- tribution to the music world were honored in April 2009, with four widely heralded and sold- out concerts in Carnegie Hall’s “Perspectives” series. Also in 2009, Mr. Hussain was named a

Susana Millman Susana Member in the Order of Arts and Letters by AKIR HUSSAIN (tabla) is today appreciated France’s Ministry of Culture and Commun - Zboth in the field of percussion and in the ication. Most recently, the National Symphony music world at large as an international phe- Orchestra with Christoph Eschenbach com- nomenon. A classical tabla virtuoso of the missione d and premièred Mr. Hussain’s highest order, his consistently brilliant and ex- Concerto for Four Soloists at the Kennedy citing performances have not only established Center for Performing Arts, which was met with him as a national treasure in his own country, great acclaim. , but as one of the world’s most esteemed Masters of Percussion, an outgrowth of Mr. and influential musicians, renowned for his Hussain’s memorable tours with his father, the genre-defying collaborations. His playing is legendary Ustad Allarakha, has enjoyed suc- marked by uncanny intuition and masterful cessful tours in the West since 1996. Joining improvisational dexterity, founded in formi- the 2014 tour are Selvaganesh Vinayakram dable knowledge and study. The favorite ac- (kanjira and ghatam), Steve Smith (Western companist for many of India’s greatest classical drums), Niladri Kumar (sitar), Dilshad Khan musicians and dancers, he has not let his ge- (sarangi), Deepak Bhatt (dhol), Vijay Chavan nius rest there. (dholki), and distinguished Kathak dancer Widely considered a chief architect of the Antonia Minnecola. contemporary world music movement, Mr. Hussain has engaged in many unique and Selvaganesh Vinyakaram is the world’s pre- historic collaborations, including Shakti, which mier performer on the kanjira, the South he founded with John McLaughlin and L. Indian . The son of Mr. Hussain’s Shankar, , the Diga Rhythm Planet Drum and Shakti partner T. H. “Vikku” Band, Making Music, Planet Drum with Vinayakram, he is also a veteran of Remember Mickey Hart, , Sangam with Shakti with John McLaughlin. His solo album Charles Lloyd and Eric Harland, and recordings Soukha (2006) featured all of the members of and performances with artists as diverse as Remember Shakti as well as his father and , Yo-Yo Ma, Joe Henderson, Masters of Percussion sitarist Niladri Kumar. Van Morrison, , , Mr. Vinyakaram is also a major force in Tamil , Mark Morris, Rennie Harris, and film making circles, composing songs in a be- the Kodo drummers. His 2009 recording with guiling mixture of genres, from folk to hip- frequent collaborators and trio-mates Béla Fleck hop to romantic ballads, and backed by a wide and Edgar Meyer, The Melody of Rhythm, was array of players from all over the world. nominated for a Grammy Award in 2010.

CAL PERFORMANCES ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Steve Smith is the first non-Indian drummer Taufiq Quereshi in the classical and Carnatic to be included in a Masters of Percussion tour. genres, he plays in a number of different A Berklee College alumnus, he toured with the ensembles playing music from classical to fu- violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and the rocker sion to Bollywood. He has performed with Ronnie Montrose before joining the mega-hit Taufiq Quereshi, , Niladri American band Journey for the peak years of its Kumar, and Selvagane sh, among others, and success. American music fans voted him the was part of Mr. Hussain’s 2009 Grammy-win- world’s No. 1 All-Around Drummer at Modern ning CD, Global Drum Project. Drummer magazine for five years running. In recent years, he has been among the most in- Vijay Chavan was born to a family with a strong demand session players around, working with tradition of Indian folk drumming and singing, musicians from pop (Mariah Carey, Andrea and is one of the leading exponents of the dholki, Bocelli, Bryan Adams) to jazz (Ahmad Jamal, the premier of . He , ). Mr. Smith also tours is a well known performer in the Hindi film in- with his jazz/world music group Steve Smith & dustry, working with Laxmikant Pyarelal, Vital Information, currently celebrating its 30- Anand Millind, Uttam Singh, and , as year anniversary. He joined Zakir Hussain dur- well as the great Tamil film music composer ing the latter’s 2013 residency at the Ilayaraja. Mr. Chavan has performed with Trilok inaugur ation of the SFJAZZ Center. For more Gurtu, , , and information, visit www.vitalinformation.com. Terry Bozzio of Frank Zappa fame.

Niladri Kumar is on the cutting edge of the Antonia Minnecola is one of few American sitar, playing at the highest level in both clas- artists recognized as a serious exponent of sical and fusion realms. He began playing at Kathak, the dynamic classical dance style of age four and first performed in public at six, North India. As a choreographer, she employs winning the Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Ustad Kathak to present contemporary works, often Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar award in 2007. collaborating with artists of different genres, in- He recorded with John McLaughlin on the cluding musicians Zakir Hussain, Aashish Khan, album Floating Point, and went on to create , Mickey Hart and Taufiq Qureshi, the “zitar,” an electrified fusion of sitar and singer Molly Holm, poet Michael McClure, and guitar. At the same time, his profound abili- hip-hop artist Rennie Harris. Twice a recipient ties as a classical sitarist led to his winning the of the Marin Arts Council Individual Artist M. N. Mathur Award in the 51st Maharana Grant for Choreography, Ms. Minnecola is the Kumbha Sangeet Samorah in 2013. This is his disciple of Sitara Devi, widely considered the second Masters of Percussion tour. greatest female Kathak dancer of our time, with whom she has studied under the auspices of two Dilshad Khan took up the sarangi at the age of Smithsonian Institution Fellowships. Ms. six under the tutelage of his grandfather, Ustad Minnecola has appeared in many tours and fes- Gulab Khansahib, one of the greatest sarangi tivals including the Bay Area’s Other Minds players of his era, and his father, Ustad Nasir Festival, the San Francisco Jazz Festival, the Khansahib, also a great sitar player. He later Asian-Pacific Performing Arts Festival, the studied extensively with his uncle, Padma Auckland Festival, and at Jacob’s Pillow. As a solo Bhushan Sultan Khansahib. Mr. Khan is part Kathak artist, she is often accompanied by her of the ninth generation of performers in the husband, tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, and has Sikar of , India. In addition also appeared with his ensembles, Masters of to performing with a wide array of fellow mu- Percussion and the Rhythm Experience. She has sicians, Mr. Khan is a famous name in the assisted Mr. Hussain in his guest professor Bollywood film industry, where he has played tenures at Princeton and Stanford universities, on more than 500 movies, including the hits in several of his Meet the Composer residencies, Devdas, Namaste London, and Tere Naam. and at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. Most recently, she has been teaching Kathak for Deepak Bhatt is a superb young player of the LINES Ballet’s B.F.A. Program in Dance at dhol, a double-headed drum. A student of Dominican University.

PLAYBILL