TISRA: Zakir Hussain

Please Note:  This event has been rescheduled from March 23 to April 10, due to inclement weather. All tickets for the original date will be honored for the April 10 performance. You do not need to exchange your tickets. If you have any questions, please contact us.

The pre-eminent classical tabla virtuoso of our time, Zakir Hussain is appreciated both in the field of percussion and in the music world at large as an international phenomenon. Hussain will lead his ensemble TISRA (three) with two of India’s finest young musicians, Sabir Khan and Debopriya Chatterjee. Showcasing rich folk and classical traditions, this unique trio is comprised of tabla, sarangi, and bansuri (bamboo flute), a combination not often heard. This colorful mix, combined with Indian classical music and the rich rhythm repertoire of Punjab, makes for a compelling program.

Performers

Zakir Hussain, tabla 

Debopriya Chatterjee, bansuri 

Sabir Khan, sarangi 

Zakir Hussain

A child prodigy touring in India from the tender age of twelve, Zakir quickly became a favorite accompanist for India’s greatest musicians and dancers. He began his international touring career by the age of eighteen, and has been at the helm of many genre-defying collaborations including Shakti, Remember Shakti, Masters of Percussion, Diga, Planet Drum, Tabla Beat Science and Sangam. His first solo album Making Music was released in 1987, acclaimed as “one of the most inspired East-West fusion albums ever recorded.”  In 1991, Planet Drum, an album co-created and produced with Mickey Hart, became the first recording to win a Grammy in the Best World Music category and the Downbeat Critics’ Poll for Best World Beat Album. Zakir’s music and extraordinary contribution to the music world were honored in April, 2009, with four widely-heralded and sold-out concerts for Carnegie Hall’s Artist Perspective series.

Zakir is the 2022 Kyoto Prize Laureate in Arts and Philosophy and is the recipient of countless other awards, including two Grammys, Padma Vibhushan (2023), Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri, Officier in France’s Order of Arts and Letters, the 2022 Aga Khan Music Award and the 1999 National Heritage Fellowship, the USA’s highest honor for a master of traditional arts. Voted “Best Percussionist” by both the Downbeat Critics’ Poll and Modern Drummer’s Reader’s Poll over several years, including 2020, Zakir was honored with SFJazz’s Lifetime Achievement Award at their 2017 Gala for his “unparalleled contribution to the world of music”.

As a composer, he has scored music for many feature films, has composed numerous original works, and has composed four concertos, the most recent premiered in September, 2023, by the Symphony Orchestra of India. In 2009, “Triple Concerto for Banjo, Bass and Tabla” and new works composed by Zakir, Edgar Meyer, and Bela Fleck, were released as the Grammy-nominated The Melody of Rhythm. Zakir’s second concerto, “Ameen, Amen, Shanti – Concerto for Four Soloists,” a special commission for the National Symphony Orchestra, premiered at Kennedy Center in March, 2011.  His third concerto, “Peshkar-Concerto for Tabla and Orchestra,” the first ever with this configuration, was premiered in September, 2015, by the Symphony Orchestra of India, subsequently enjoying international premieres.

Zakir’s career as an educator is no less splendid, having led workshops and master classes all over the world in the course of his career.  He has been a professor at Princeton University, Stanford University, the University of Washington, and at UC Berkeley in the prestigious post of Regents Lecturer. Zakir’s yearly tabla workshop in Marin County, California, draws hundreds of serious students and performers.  In 2019, he was selected as a Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellow and awarded honorary doctorates from Berklee College of Music, Boston, from Indira Kala Sangeet University, Khairagarh, and, in 2022, from Mumbai University and ITM University, Gwalior.

Zakir is the founder and president of Moment! Records, an independent record label presenting rare live concert recordings of Indian classical music and world music.

Debopriya Chatterjee

The musical journey of Debopriya Chatterjee began at home, under the guidance of her parents Professor Robin Chatterjee & Mrs. Krishna Chatterjee, both vocalists & composers from Allahabad. Debopriya started her initial flute training under the guidance of the late Pandit Bholanath Prasanna Ji of Allahabad. Her quest to express the depth and richness of Hindustani classical music, and of her chosen instrument, the bansuri (bamboo flute), brought her to the feet of her guru, the great exponent of the Maihar Senia Gharana Padmavibhushan Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia.

In the past 25 years, under the tutelage of her guru, she has grown tremendously as a musician and a performer. She has had the honor & privilege of accompanying her guru on stage for various prestigious concerts in India and abroad. She has also performed individually and along with her elder sister Suchismita at various music conferences and soirees all over the world. Known as the “Flutesisters”, they are among very few women flautists performing Hindustani classical music.

Accolades and awards have been showered on her, including the “Rashtriya Kumar Gandharwa Puraskar” by the government of Madhya Pradesh for the year 2020, the prestigious “Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar” by the Sangeet Natak Akademy, “Award for Excellence” by Sahara India, and “Surmani” by Kal ke Kalakar, to name a few. She achieved her Sangeet Pravin (Master of Music) and Sangeet Prabhakar (Bachelor of Music) from Prayag Sangeet Samiti – Allahabad in Vocal and Flute with Gold Medal honors. At Rotterdam’s World Music Conservatory, she acquired a DM (Docenten Musicus) and UM (Uitvoerend Musicus) with distinction. She is a graded artist of All India Radio-Mumbai and an empaneled artist of ICCR (Indian Council for Cultural Relations).

Sabir Khan

Sabir Khan is one of India’s most talented and sought-after musicians of the present day. His instrument is the sarangi, a bowed instrument said to possess the sound closest to the human voice. He is the son of the great sarangi player/vocalist Padma Bhushan Ustad Sultan Khan, their family belonging to the Sikar gharana (school) of music, which has given several stalwarts to Indian classical music, including his great-grandfather Ustad Azim Khansahib, a court musician at Sikar in Rajasthan.

Sabir was born in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, and began training at the age of 6 with his grandfather, Ustad Gulab Khan. The 10th generation of his family to play sarangi, Sabir is known today for his consummate mastery, employing a technique that is a rare combination of sur and laya (note and rhythm). He often performed with his illustrious father in concert and has appeared as a soloist and alongside many of India’s greatest artists, including Zakir Hussain, Pandit Birju Maharaj, Ustad Rashid Khan, gazal maestro Ustad Gulam Ali, Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle. Sabir is a popular composer for film and TV, having scored and composed songs for many feature films, including Jodha Akbar, Dangal and Sanwariya. He appeared with A.R. Rehman and Shreya Ghosal in their episode of MTV Unplugged and has recently founded his own record label, featuring a number of talented artists and celebrity singers, including Salim-Sulaiman

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