An Evening of South Asian Drum Music
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 22, 2003
Kathleen McPartland
530-898-4260
An Evening of South Asian Drum Music
A musical performance featuring Indian and Pakistani drum music will take place Monday, Sept. 29, from 7 to 9 p.m., in Trinity 100, at California State University, Chico. The performance is free and open to the public.
The performance, Classical Drumming Traditions of North India and Pakistan: a Concert of Tabla and Pakhawaj Music, will be performed by ethnomusicologists and drummers Lowell Lybarger and Ed Pias. The musicians encourage audience participation and promise a dynamic and interactive presentation.
Lybarger and Pias are accomplished drummers and have played for audiences in Pakistan, India and North America. A student of the late Pakistani tabla master Ustad Shaukat Hussain, Lybarger has performed at the Seattle International Folklife Festival and has appeared on Pakistan Television and Radio Pakistan. He recently completed his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Toronto.
Pias, who trained originally as a jazz drummer, has performed and recorded with major artists such as composer John Cage, David Byrne of the musical group Talking Heads, and jazz greats Bill Evans and Stan Getz. Pias earned a D.MA. in percussion from the University of Washington in 1996; he currently studies with Mohan Shyam of Delhi, India.
The tabla and pakhawaj drums are primary percussion instruments of the North Indian and Pakistani classical music traditions. The tabla is actually two drums: one has a higher pitch, the other a deeper tone. It has become increasingly popularized in Europe and the United States, providing back beat grooves behind everything from jazz and world music fusion projects to film scores like “Dead Man Walking.” The pakhawaj is a single drum with a head on either end. Rarely heard today, even in India, this drum has important connections to Hindu religious myths and practices.
The Committee on Arts and Lectures at California State University, Chico, as well as the Departments of Anthropology, Music, and Religious Studies and the1078 Gallery sponsor the event.
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