- in Entertainment News by Mike
Dosti Music Project Announces Residency Roster
The Dosti Music Project 2015
A Month-Long Experiment in Border-Bridging Collaborative Creation, involving Pakistani, Indian, and American Musicians
The Dosti Music Project is an initiative of the Embassy of the United States in Islamabad, Pakistan and produced by Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation in partnership with the Atlantic Center for the Arts and Sound Observatory New Orleans
Residency: February 23-March 7, 2015 at Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL
Tour Concerts:
March 5 at 7:30pm – Timucua White House, Orlando, FL
March 7 at 7pm – Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL
March 9-15 – Residency at Sound Observatory New Orleans
March 10 at 10pm – Open Ears at the Blue Nile, New Orleans, LA
March 13 at 7pm – Tigermen’s Den, New Orleans, LA
March 15 at 8 & 10pm – Snug Harbor, New Orleans, LA
March 18-21 – South by Southwest, Austin, TX
For Tour Details: www.dostimusic.org
www.foundsoundnation.org | http://islamabad.usembassy.gov | www.bangonacan.org
The Dosti Music Project brings together ten musicians from Pakistan, India, and the U.S. for a month-long (February 23-March 21, 2015) residency and tour. The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan organized and sponsored the program produced by Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation, which invites four Pakistanis, four Indians, and two U.S. musicians from a wide variety of traditions, including Sufi singing to electronic beat-making to Appalachian fiddling, to collaboratively write, record, and perform original music, re-invent traditional music, and develop new projects that will make a positive impact on communities locally and internationally. Dosti, which means friendship in both Urdu and Hindi, transcends political barriers through cross-cultural musical collaboration.
The program begins with a two-week residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, FL from February 23-March 7 including two public performances on March 5 (Timucua White House, Orlando) and March 7 (Atlantic Center for the Arts). The Dosti Music Project continues with performances in an historic New Orleans neighborhood in partnership with Sound Observatory New Orleans (SONO) on March 10 (Open Ears at the Blue Nile), March 13 (Tigermen’s Den), and March 15 (Snug Harbor), and concludes with concerts at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, TX from March 18-21. For tour concert details visit www.dostimusic.org.
Through the process of sharing, listening, and collaborating, the Dosti musician delegates will model a creative, cooperative, and egalitarian cultural exchange between India, Pakistan, and the United States – a positive template that can transform the dynamics of cross-national discourse and people-to-people interaction. By providing musicians from India and Pakistan the infrastructure for collaboration and integration, Dosti creates a unique opportunity to reconnect musical traditions and re-link the politically fractured South Asian subcontinent. By facilitating the project in the U.S. and including American musicians, the U.S. participates as capacity-builders and as equal partners, establishing a model of cultural interaction that can positively impact diplomatic and political discourses.
The cultures of India and Pakistan are deeply interconnected, but creating opportunities for people-to-people contact can be challenging. Yet music has always served as a binding force in South Asia. Bollywood is wildly popular on both sides of the border, just as ghazal singers attract audiences on both sides of the border. Indians and Pakistanis have an immense shared cultural experience upon which to build new collaborations – the Dosti Project provides a space for that to happen.
The Dosti Music Project 2015 Fellows:
Zohaib Hassan, Sarangi player – Pakistan
Zohaib Hassan is a sarangi player born and raised in Lahore. His musical lineage can be traced back through six generations of sarangi players. “It was my father’s life-long wish that our family’s musical heritage be carried on by the next generation, so I began to learn sarangi from my family elders,” he says. After hours of rehearsal on the instrument as a child, he began playing professionally at the age of 15. “One of my goals is to preserve my family’s unique sarangi playing approach of using all four fingers on the left hand as opposed to the more common three finger approach used by most of today’s players. By utilizing all four fingers, we’re able to achieve a speed and agility rarely heard on sarangi.” This unique technique has taken him to stages throughout Europe, the United States, and Southeast Asia and led to a number of in-studio sessions for TV, radio, and film. He is also a prominent teacher of the sarangi, with dedicated students all over the world.
Imran Fida, vocalist – Pakistan
Imran Fida is a vocalist from Lahore, rooted in the Sufi tradition of singing. Imran studied under his father, renowned folk singer Fida Hussain, before continuing his training at the Government College University in Lahore. Imran’s voice is remarkable, full of passion, and skillfully controlled, so it is no surprise that he has won many top prizes and accolades across Pakistan. He is deeply committed to preserving and sharing Pakistani traditional music, evident in his mastery of Sufi and ghazal genres, while also experimenting with more contemporary pop styles of singing.
Bilal Khan, producer – Pakistan
Bilal Khan is a producer from Karachi and a key member of the emerging electronic music scene in the city. Previously a member of bands such as Mole, Bilal now produces solo electronic soundscapes under the moniker Rudoh and has risen as one of the city’s first few beatmakers. He is the co-founder and leader of a small but notable net-label and collective of producers called Forever South (FXS). In his pursuit to fine-tune his production abilities and his sound, he spent a few years in London studying to become an audio engineer. While in London, he had a release on Studio Rockerz, a label that has had releases from artists such as Eskmo, The Moody Boyz and Jazzstepa, and also played at GetDarker, an online podcast that has previously showcased the likes of Mala, Loefah, Digital Mystikz and Pangea. With a sound and aesthetic that could easily sit alongside any artist on influential electro label Brainfeeder, Rudoh’s productions focus heavily on detailing mass waves of sound with just the right amount of percussive mania.
Natasha Humera Ejaz, singer-songwriter – Pakistan
Natasha Humera Ejaz is a singer and songwriter from Islamabad. Inspired by singers like Bjork, Jeff Buckley, and Esperanza Spalding, Natasha has worked over the past ten years to develop her unique vocal timbre, which bears hints of her background in jazz and Broadway-style singing. Her thousands of fans on Facebook have recognized her original blend of folk, jazz, and electro-pop, leading to a string of shows across the country, most recently at the MPowerFest, an all-day festival in Karachi featuring some of Pakistan’s best young talent. In addition to writing and performing on the guitar, Natasha also records ambient soundscapes under the name Stupid Happiness Theory, a nod to her training in audio production at ICOM in Malaysia. When she’s not writing, recording, and performing, she teaches music to people of all ages. “I am a very involved instructor,” she writes, “often forming bonds and relationships with my students that last years. And I will continue to do this because I can’t think of a better way of giving back to society.”
Debanjan Bhattacharjee, Sarod player – India
Debanjan Bhattacharjee is an Indian classical sarod player and composer from Kolkata. A disciple of the renowned Ustad Aashish Khan, he received the President’s Gold Medal Award in 2008 and was nominated for a Global Indian Music Award in 2012. He is a proponent of Indian classical techniques and wishes to share them, both to ensure their continuation and to breathe new life into them. To that end, he teaches music classes in his home and spreads his knowledge to a new generation of younger musicians, while also composing and arranging regional folk songs himself. But far from limiting himself to folk and classical idioms, Debanjan is an avid and experienced collaborator and has participated in musical exchanges with artists ranging from Azerbaijan to Germany, and beyond.
Mirande Shah, vocalist – India
Mirande Shah is a singer and songwriter from Ahmedabad, Gujarat. She is a breathtaking singer trained in the Indian classical tradition, with a honeyed timbre and impeccable intonation. In addition to her top-notch performing abilities, Mirande has also founded her own label, Roohani, and is a vocal advocate for women’s empowerment. Her song “Main Chaloon – To the Woman of Strength” addresses gender equality, which is epitomized by the increasing instances of rape cases in India, and a music video for the song was shown in a number of government schools for girls in order to spread a message of empowerment for young females. Mirande is currently working with an NGO to revive and restore the Gujarati language by composing and singing nursery rhymes in the language, to be taught in schools across the state. She also recently starred as one of the leads of Mahabharata, a world music production based on the great Indian epic that showcases various singing traditions such as acappella, jazz, opera, Indian classical, and more.
Surojato Roy, Tabla player – India
Surojato Roy is a percussionist, specializing in tabla, from Calcutta. The son of an Indian classical vocalist and a violinist, Surojato was introduced to playing at an early age by Pandit Tanmoy Bose. Later, he became the youngest ‘Ganda–Bandh’ student of renowned tabla maestro Pandit Shankar Ghosh and has been his disciple for the past eighteen years. He also plays the pakhwaj, darbouka, djemba, cajon, and khanjira (among other percussion instruments). Surojato has taken his considerable knowledge of tabla and brought it to villages in Arunachal Pradesh and parts of the Sunderbans, where he has taught impoverished children. He also teaches free music classes at the Surtaal Academy of Music, where students are given instruments they couldn’t otherwise afford.
Sanaya Ardeshir, producer, keyboardist – India (Fellow / Facilitator)
Sanaya Ardeshir is a producer and keyboard player from Mumbai. Sanaya was a OneBeat Fellow (a sister project to Dosti) in 2014 and will be joining us as a liaison between Fellows and Facilitators during Dosti. Her experience with the OneBeat style of cultural exchange and her knowledge of the regions of India and Pakistan will greatly enrich this initiative. Sanaya is also a talented and successful musician in her own right. She began playing classical piano at the age of 7, but later felt the call of jazz, funk, and trip-hop music. Since then, she has created a dazzling catalogue of self-produced music under the name Sandunes, which has been lauded by some of the biggest indie music blogs and platforms in the country.
Tatiana Silver Hargreaves, violinist – USA
Tatiana Hargreaves is a violin player from Oregon. She has steeped herself in the archives of Appalachian music, playing fiddle, banjo, and singing, drawing from her time spent with oldtime musicians such as Bruce Molsky, Paul Brown, John Hermann and Franklin George, as well as intensive studies of source recordings. A first prize winner at the Clifftop Appalachian Stringband Festival Fiddle Contest, she has also maintained her connection to classical, new acoustic, and bluegrass music. In both 2012 and 2013, Tatiana was selected to participate in the Acoustic Music Seminar at the Savannah Music Festival to collaborate with other young acoustic musicians and explore contemporary composition based on traditional genres. There, she met innovative bassist Ethan Jodziewicz, with whom she has been touring throughout the country. Tatiana currently studies music and ethnomusicology at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA.
Shahzad Ismaily, composer & multi-instrumentalist – USA (Collaborating Artist)
Shahzad Ismaily was born to Pakistani immigrant parents and grew up in a wholly bicultural household. While he holds a masters degree in biochemistry from Arizona State University, he is a largely self-taught composer and musician, having mastered the electric and double bass, guitar, banjo, accordion, flute, drums, various percussion instruments and various analog synthesizers and drum machines. Ismaily has recorded or performed with an incredibly diverse assemblage of musicians, including Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Jolie Holland, Laura Veirs, Bonnie Prince Billy, Faun Fables, Secret Chiefs 3, John Zorn, Elysian Fields, Shelley Hirsch, Niobe, Will Oldham, Nels Cline, Mike Doughty (of Soul Coughing), Graham Haynes, David Krakauer, Billy Martin (of Medeski Martin and Wood), Carla Kihlstedt’s Two Foot Yard, the Tin Hat Trio, Raz Mesinai and Burnt Sugar. He has also composed regularly for dance and theater, including for Min Tanaka, the Frankfurt Ballet and the East River Commedia. Currently based in New York, Ismaily has studied music extensively in Pakistan, India, Turkey, Mexico, Santiago, Japan, Indonesia, Morocco and Iceland.
Aurora Nealand, saxophonist, clarinetist, accordionist & vocalist – USA (Fellow / Facilitator)
Aurora Nealand is a multi-instrumentalist from New Orleans, USA. An established bandleader, composer, performer and improviser, Aurora has become a prominent force in the New Orleans music scene since she first arrived in 2005. Her training combines the formal education – studies at Oberlin Conservatory and the Jacques Lecoq School of Physical Theatre in Paris – with the “informal” education of playing music in the streets and clubs of New Orleans and around the world for the past decade. Widely recognized as a soprano saxophonist, and best known as a bandleader for her “non-traditional” early jazz band, The Royal Roses, Aurora’s creative spirit also spans far beyond the music of the 1940’s. Her solo project, The Monocle (accordion, electronics and voice), explores the fringes of artistic expression, drawing on her depth of experience in physical theater, installation and sonic exploration. Her alter ego-rockabilly band, Rory Danger and the Danger Dangers is a New Orleans festival favorite drawing sold–out crowds. Aurora was a OneBeat Fellow (Dosti’s sister program) in 2013 and joins Dosti as both a Fellow and a city coordinator: she and her partner Lisa Giordano of Sound Observatory New Orleans – which facilitates artist residencies and workshopping of new music in the New Orleans area – have curated all of the performances and social engagement opportunities that will happen during Dosti’s week-long residency in NOLA.
Bang on a Can and Found Sound Nation: The Dosti Music Project is organized and sponsored by the Embassy of the United States in Pakistan and produced by Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation. Found Sound Nation, led by Chris Marianetti, Jeremy Thal, and Elena Moon Park, is the social engagement wing of Bang on a Can. A collective of musicians and artists who leverage the unique power of creative sound-making to help build strong, just, healthy communities all over the world, Found Sound Nation began with one classroom-based studio in a school in the Bronx, and has expanded to include a wide range of national and international projects, including producing the OneBeat international exchange with the Department of State, now in its third year.
Since its inception in 1987, Bang on a Can has been dedicated to supporting innovative music wherever it can be found, the artists that make it, the audiences that love it. As a presenter, Bang on a Can has introduced many international artists to the U.S. and to U.S. audiences, many for the first time. Some of these remarkable collaborations and presentations include projects with the Burmese Pat Waing (drum circle) master Kyaw Kyaw Naing, the Uzbek ensemble Mashriq, the renowned Bulgarian clarinetist Ivo Papasov, and many more. Since 2001, Bang on a Can has been particularly engaged in music exchange programs with musicians from Central Asia, having hosted over two dozen musicians from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan at its Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts and having produced three tours to those territories. Bang on a Can has also collaborated closely with U.S. Embassies on the ground in Tashkent, Moscow, Mexico City, Istanbul, Surabaya, Shanghai, Budapest, and more.