Sarode - Rajrupa Chowdhury
Tabla - Samir Chatterjee
Join us for an in-person Sarode performance by Rajrupa Chowdhury. This performance will also be streamed live.
Rajrupa Chowdhury
Ms. Rajrupa Chowdhury was born at Kolkata, India. She took up Sarod at the tender age of five at the Ustad Ameer Khan School of Instrumental Music under the guidance of Pranab Naha. She has taken talim from Pandit Ajay Sinha Roy and from Siddhartha Roy Chowdhury. In 2006, Ms Chowdhury was placed first class first in her Masters in Instrumental Music from the Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. Since then she has been taking advanced talim from Prof. Sanjoy Bandyopadhyay, who has been influential in the formation of her own style of music.
Ms. Chowdhury has performed at various concerts and competitions in India such as Salt Lake Music Festival, Kolkata (2010); Maitraiyee Sangeet Sammelan, Kolkata (2009); Sutanoti Parisad Concert, Kolkata (2005); Protiva Utsab organized by EZCC, Govt of India (2003); Bishwa Banga Shammelan at Yuva Bharti Krirangan, Kolkata (2001); India Habitat Centre (2001); All India Radio Music Competition (2001) and Dover Lane Music Competition, Kolkata, (1999). She is the proud recipient of awards like ITC-SRA Promising Artist Award, Mumbai; 2001; National Scholarship for Senior Students of Indian Classical Music, Govt. of India, 2000, and Distinction for Sangeet Bhushan by Sangeet Parisad, Chandigarh.
Ms. Rajrupa Chowdhury has also performed at the Bengal ITC-SRA Classical Music Festival, Dhaka (2012); Chhayanaut Suddha Sangeet Sammelan, Dhaka (2012) and in ‘A Tribute to Ustad Ali Akbar Khan’ organized by Chhayanaut, Dhaka in 2009. She has performed on several occasions at Bengal Shilpalaya, Bengal Art Lounge and Shadhona, Dhaka.
Internationally, Ms. Rajrupa Chowdhury has performed at USA, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. She was the youngest Sarod player to perform at the North American Bengali Conference held at New York, USA in 1995.
Samir Chatterjee
Samir Chatterjee is a virtuoso Tabla player from India. He travels widely across the world throughout the year performing in numerous festivals as a soloist or with other outstanding musicians from both Indian and non-Indian musical traditions. Samir performed at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway in 2007. He also performed a few times at the United Nations General Assembly. His compositions are widely acclaimed as well as his writings. Samir is a firm believer in the transforming effect of music on the society and all aspects of his work reflects this conviction. Samir began his studies early with Pandit Bankim Ghosh, Pt. Balaram Mukherjee, Pt. Rathin Dhar and Md. Salim. His later formation as a musician occurred under the guidance of Pt. Amalesh Chatterjee (since 1966) and Pt. Shyamal Bose (since 1984). All of Samir's teachers have been from the Farrukhabad Gharana (school) of Tabla-playing, which he now represents. Samir is rated ‘A’ as an artiste of Indian national radio and television. He can be heard on numerous recordings featuring as soloist, accompanying many of India's greatest musicians and in collaboration with western musicians of outstanding caliber. In concert Samir has accompanied many of India's greatest musicians including Pt. Ravi Shankar, Ud. Vilayat Khan, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Jasraj, Pt. Nikhil Banerjee, Pt. V.G. Jog, Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, M. S. Gopalakrishnan, Ud. Amjad Ali Khan, Ud. Salamat Ali Khan, Smt. Lakshmi Shankar, Pt. Manilal Nag, Ud. Ali Ahmed Hussain, Ud. Aashis Khan, Dr. L. Subramanium, U Srinivas, Ud. Naseeruddin Sami, Smt. Veena Sahashrabuddhe, Ud. Shujat Khan, Ud. Saheed Parvez, Pt. Ajoy Chakraborty, Ud. Nishat Khan, Ud. Rashid Khan, to name only a few. Samir Chatterjee lives in the New York-New Jersey area, and has been a catalyst in the fusion of Indian and Non-Indian music, in his own creations and others as well. He performs with Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, Branford Marsalis, Ravi Coltrane, Joshua Bell, Yoko Ono Lenon, David Liebman, Oliver Lake, Dave Douglas, Ned Rothenberg,