Solo percussion piece inspired by the diverse and changing soundscapes of San Francisco
Contact:
Sonia Caltvedt
Marketing Director, Community Music Center
scaltvedt@sfcmc.org
415-647-6015 x75
SAN FRANCISCO, April 4, 2017 – On Saturday, April 29, San Francisco Community Music Center will premiere new work by Indian percussionist, educator, and composer, Rohan Krishnamurthy in its Mission District Concert Hall. “7 x 7” is a rhythmic composition for solo mridangam and is one of the first socially-inspired, programmatic works for south Indian percussion. The piece will be followed by new, cross-genre ideas that Krishnamurthy has developed with Prasant Radhakrishnan (saxophone), Colin Hogan (piano), and Ryan Andrews (drums).
The April 29 performance follows a series of free Indian Rhythm and Hand Drumming Workshops at CMC (see below for event details). The workshops and performance are a collaboration between Community Music Center and Rohan Krishnamurthy and are generously supported by a San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant.
About “7×7”
“7×7,” scored for solo mridangam, is inspired by the diverse and changing soundscapes of San Francisco. The piece draws on Krishnamurthy’s field recordings of the city’s diverse natural environments and neighborhoods, and conversations with San Francisco-based artists. An array of sounds from nature, the built environment, and people are evoked in three continuous movements. The soloist is challenged to push the boundaries of traditional, mathematical repertoire, strict timing, and conventional aesthetics, and explore new, experimental capacities, in both composed and improvised parts. The piece is composed so future performances can feature other percussion instruments and performers of different skill levels.
“7×7” combines representational depictions of soundscapes with musical development. Listeners might be reminded of the wind, waves, rain, cable cars, BART, footsteps, or construction sites. The sounds and the energy of The Women’s March also inspired the composer. On its own, “7×7” presents a spectrum of rhythms and textures that at times sound familiar and unfamiliar. Delve deeper into the soundscapes and you may hear layers of symbolism reflecting an undercurrent of tension and the relentless change that shapes our diverse society.
Event Information:
April 29, 2017 at 8:00 pm
Acclaimed Indian Percussionist, Rohan Krishnamurthy in Concert
CMC Concert Hall: 544 Capp St., San Francisco, CA 94110
$15/$10 students and seniors
April 29, 2017 from 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Indian Rhythm and Hand Drumming Workshop with Rohan Krishnamurthy
CMC Concert Hall: 544 Capp St., San Francisco, CA 94110
FREE
About Community Music Center
Founded in 1921, San Francisco’s Community Music Center (CMC) is one of the oldest and largest community arts organizations on the West Coast. CMC makes high quality music accessible to all people, regardless of financial means. Last year, CMC served more than 2,400 students of all ages, ethnicities and income levels with music lessons, classes and other programs. Thousands enjoyed performances at CMC and out in the community. Learn more at www.sfcmc.org and follow the organization on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
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Artist Bios
Rohan Krishnamurthy
Acclaimed an “international mridangam performer” by USA Today and “pride of India” by India’s leading newspaper, The Times of India, Rohan Krishnamurthy is considered a musical ambassador. Having initially received mridangam training with Damodaran Srinivasan in the U.S., he continued advanced training from maestro, Guruvayur Dorai, in India. Rohan has performed hundreds of concerts internationally since the age of nine as a distinguished soloist and collaborator in diverse music and dance ensembles. His prodigious, cross-genre artistry draws from his formal study of Indian classical music, at once propagating the ancient tradition and expanding it in new artistic directions.
Rohan has shared the stage with the leading artists of Indian classical music, including M. Balamuralikrishna, T.N. Krishnan, T.N. Seshagopalan, Chitravina N. Ravikiran, S. Shashank, T. M. Krishna, and Ranjani and Gayatri. Having intensely studied many styles of music, he has also spearheaded new cross-musical collaborations with eminent symphony orchestras, jazz ensembles, and musicians including Grammy Award-winners Glen Velez and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Anoushka Shankar, Jamey Haddad, and Ayano Ninomiya. He premiered Rohan, a concerto for South Indian percussion and Western percussion ensemble written for him by composer and percussionist, Payton Macdonald. The concerto was premiered on both coasts at The Juilliard School in New York City and San Francisco Conservatory of Music in San Francisco.
An acclaimed educator, Rohan has presented Indian percussion institutes and summer camps, clinics, workshops, and master classes, and academic courses at world-renowned institutions, including the Eastman School of Music, Harvard University, Berklee College of Music, University of Madras (India), A.R. Rehman’s K.M. Conservatory of Music (India), Society for Ethnomusicology, Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Interlochen Arts Academy, and National Institute of Design (India). He teaches in the Music Department at Ohlone College and directs the award-winning RohanRhythm Percussion Studio, both in-person and online, which has attracted dozens of students of all ages from around the globe. Rohan is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including USA Today “All-College Academic Second Team,” “Young Artist of India” by Bharat Kalachar (India), Thomas Siwe Scholarship from the Percussive Arts Society, and “Prodigy in Performing Arts” by the Indo-American Center in New York City.
An innovator, Rohan designed and patented a new drumhead tuning system. His work resulted in a publication in the premier music journal, Percussive Notes, and was supported by the Eastman School of Music’s Institute for Music Leadership. Rohan conducted acoustical research on his new design and has been regularly invited to present his work at the Acoustical Society of America’s international conferences. His design is now available worldwide. Committed to community service and outreach, Rohan has conducted and organized concerts and workshops for almost two decades at prominent centers, including the San Francisco Community Music Center, Oakland Roots International Academy, Chinmaya Mission, The Banyan (India), Sankara Nethralaya, Sankara Eye Foundation, and the Indo-American Cultural
Center and Temple.
Rohan’s multifaceted accomplishments as a performer, composer, educator, researcher, and entrepreneur earned him a one-on-one meeting and performance for the President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, at the presidential office and estate in New Delhi. Based in San Francisco, Rohan earned a Ph.D. in musicology from the Eastman School of Music as a Provost Fellow, where he founded and directed a popular Indian percussion ensemble and summer institutes. He is excited to partner with the San Francisco Community Music Center on the new Hand Drumming and Indian Rhythm institutes for the Bay Area community. Learn more at www.rohanrhythm.com.
Ryan Andrews is a composer, producer, sound designer and performer based in Los Angeles. His work has been featured in the marketing campaigns of major blockbuster movies and video games such as Geostorm, Independence Day: Resurgence, Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Furious 7 and the Call Of Duty series. A versatile performer, Ryan has worked internationally with stars across genres, including pop star Aloe Blacc, Iranian icon Dariush, jazz legend Fred Hersch and country phenom Frankie Ballard.
Born in Chicago and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Ryan and Rohan Krishnamurthy first collaborated in high school, culminating in several performances and the recording of the album Layopasana 2: Rhythmic Exploration. Ryan then received his Bachelor’s degree in jazz performance and Spanish from Western Michigan University and his Master’s in the prestigious Studio Jazz Writing program at the University of Miami, during which time he was mentored in composition by Lyle Mays of the Pat Metheny Group. While a student, Ryan was the recipient of eleven Downbeat Student Awards for his composition, performance, and production, and in 2012 was awarded the ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Award. Ryan currently maintains a schedule balancing composition, performance and managing production at the boutique trailer music library Pitch Hammer Music, based in Los Angeles and Iceland.
Colin Hogan was born in San Francisco, CA. He was a member of the world-renowned Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble while also studying with the Jazzschool’s founder, Susan Muscarella. He then attended Cal State East Bay (Hayward) where he earned a BA in piano performance.
Colin has performed on five continents and has performed with many legendary jazz musicians including James Moody, Peter Erskine, Bob Brookmeyer, Roy Ayers, and Maria Schneider. In 2004 he performed with electric bass revolutionary Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone at the California Music Awards. Colin is currently involved in many projects including The Tommy Igoe Groove Conspiracy, Dynamic, The Jazz Mafia, Trio Zincalo and The Hogan Brothers with brothers Steve and Julian. He has worked as a music educator at SFJAZZ, Longfellow Middle School, and The Community School of the East Bay, and is currently an instructor at Cal State East Bay and the California Jazz Conservatory.
Prasant Radhakrishnan is a versatile saxophonist steeped in both South Indian Classical (Carnatic) and jazz disciplines. The unique vocal texture of his sound on saxophone, noted for its expressive complexity and rhythmic ingenuity, reflects Prasant’s continued study of tradition, constant innovation, and vast concert experience over the past fifteen years. The foremost disciple of Carnatic saxophone pioneer, Kadri Gopalnath, Prasant’s collaborations with Rohan date back almost two decades when they met at music festivals and subsequently performed across the country and India. In parallel with his development as a Carnatic artist, Radhakrishnan immersed himself in American jazz, playing in the all-star bands in high school and going on to study jazz at the University of Southern California (2000-2004). After Prasant’s move to the Bay Area in 2005, he founded VidyA. VidyA has emerged with a soulful, penetrating sound that pushes the labels of “fusion” or “world music” by merging the virtuosity of jazz with the melodic and rhythmic nuance of Carnatic music. Named among the top jazz acts by the San Francisco Chronicle, VidyA’s style has been heralded as “..madly percussive and sparkling with…a saxophone that switches idioms from second to second, and a warm, quickly picked string bass. The result combines jazz’s sweet dreaminess with the Indian form’s insistent rhythmic and tonal changes…” (San Francisco Weekly).
Radhakrishnan has established himself as an exciting Bay Area artist known for blurring musical boundaries while steeped in traditional roots. His six year relationship with the San Francisco art space, Red Poppy Art House, has resulted in two artist residencies in 2007 and 2010 and groundbreaking musical collaborations such as Nefasha Ayer: The Space of In Between (with Ethiopian vocalist Meklit Hadero, guitarist and painter Todd Brown, jazz artists Marcus Shelby, Howard Wiley and poet Michael Warr among others) and Teobi’s Dream (a multi disciplinary project with Todd Brown at the de Young Museum). He has received grants from National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Sparkplug Foundation and SF Friends of Chamber Music for his
original work.