NYC Radio Live

An unbelievable live performance featuring 2024 Grammy Award winner Ganesh Rajagopalan (violin) and Anantha R. Krishnan (mridangam) as broadcast on WKCR from the Ragas Live Festival at Pioneer Works in 2024.You can hear our conversation after the set on the previous podcast.  A virtuoso since childhood Ganesh Rajagopalan has been performing on stage since the tender age of 7 years old. He has been dazzling audiences for 50 years, most recently with John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain and the Shakti ensemble. 
The grandson and disciple of mridangam maestro, Shri. Palghat R. Raghu, Anantha R. Krishnan started learning the fundamentals of the mridangam under his uncle, Shri. R. Ramkumar and then began an official tutelage under his grandfather at the age of five. He performed his first concert at the age of seven. During this period, he received many awards from traditional organizations of Carnatic Music in India, including the Best Mridangist Prize from the Music Academy, Madras, a record five times in six years. Also, he was awarded the State of the Arts Award from the New Jersey government twice in 1997-1998 as part of the National Endowment of the Arts’ effort to promote cultural awareness in the U.S.A.
Anantha holds a BA in Western Music and Philosophy from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and a Masters of Fine Arts in Electronic Music and Percussion from Mills College, California. During this time he studied Western percussion under William Winant. Specializing in contemporary 20th century percussion music. He is also a special interest student of tabla under Ustad Zakir Hussain for the past six years.

After an incredible set with Anantha R. Krishnan (mridangam)at Ragas Live Festival, we caught up with THE violin maestro, 2024 Grammy Award winner Ganesh Rajagopalan, for a quick on-air conversation about his journey in music.  A child prodigy who began performing at the age of seven, Ganesh rose to stardom performing with legends like tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and guitarist John McLaughlin of Shakti fame as well as for his solo violin work with Oscar-winning Bollywood music director A. R. Rahman and many others. 

A memorable performance from Slowspin at the Ragas Live Festival 2024 featruing Zeerak Ahmed (vocals+electronics), Grey Mcmurray (guitar), Marlon Patton (drums) Shahzad Ismaily (bass)     This was the 9PM set on October 21st, the 4th set during 24 hours of continuous music at Pioneer Works, in Red Hook Brooklyn.
US-based Pakistani artist, Slowspin (Zeerak Ahmed) has a distinct sound practice grounded in North Indian classical vocal traditions, dream-folk, ambient and experimental-electronic music.
By taking the thumri and recontextualizing it for contemporary music—ambient, dream pop, guitar-based folk—she is excavating this buried alternative history. These centuries-old songs and traditions send down fresh roots into new soil on TALISMAN, still aching for home but open to new possibilities for growth, new histories to write. Much like Ahmed herself, and millions of others in the South Asian diaspora. “They tell me not to plant things where they don’t belong,” Ahmed sings in understated defiance on the closing “Belong.” “What if that’s all I know?” – Pitchfork
US-based Pakistani artist Zeerak Ahmed, who performs under the stage name Slowspin, produces voice-based sculptures, sound installations and uniquely fragile sound collages. Slowspin has a distinct sound practice grounded in North Indian classical vocal traditions, dream-folk, ambient and experimental-electronic music. Poetry and melodies in her mother tongue(s)—Urdu, Farsi, Purbi and English—build new textural soundscapes. Her collaborative album, TALISMAN, opens a world of Slowspin’s uncanny and heart-wrenching refrains, delivering a balm for the migrant’s journey into the unknown: the abyss of love, loss and longing. Since the release of the TALISMAN, she has been performing with the album’s co-producer Grey Mcmurray (Tongues in Trees trio, Beth Orthon, Ali Sethi), Marlon Patton (Lonnie Holley, The Mace Hibbard Quintet) and Grammy nominated multi-instrumentalist, Shahzad Ismaily (Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, Love in Exile).

 Ud. Bashir Khan (bulbul tarang) and Ud. Feroz Khan (tabla) perform Rag Desh on 10/19/2024 at the Ragas Live Festival 2024 at Pioneer Works.  This was a very rare presentation of Raga on the Bulbul Tarang a unique instrument used more often in folk music and light classical from Pakistan and India.   The instrument was created in Japan in 1912 based on the concept of combining the mechanics of a typewriter with a musical instrument.   By the 1930s the instrument had arrived in India and was adapted in both India and Pakistan to suit their local styles. 
Mohammad Bashir Khan, originally from Rajasthan India, is one of the foremost exponents of his instrument, Bubul Tarang. He hails from a family of six generations of artists. As a follower of the Kirana Gharana under maestro Abdul Rehman Khansahib, he has applied his training to this unique instrument and regularly accompanied the highest profile artists including Ustad Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Nursrat Fateh Ali Khan, Pankaj Udas, and Hari Haran. He regularly works with Bollywood movie directors and can be heard in many movies.
 

7PM set of the 24 hour Ragas Live Festival at Pioneer Works 10.19.24
Ragas Live Festival 2024 opened with this beautiful set: Seema Gulati (sitar) and Anirban Roy Chowdhury (Tabla).
 

The grand finale of 24 hours of music at Pioneer Works! The Afghan superstars Houmayoun Sakhi (Rubab) and Salar Nader (Tabla) perform an explosive set of music.  

This is the penultimate set from the Ragas Live Festival 2024 that took place during 24 hours of continuous music at Pioneer Works October 19-20th in Red Hook, Brooklyn.  
Debashish Bhattacharya Trio featuring the "world's greatest slide guitarist"
Debashish Bhattacharya - Hindustani Slide Guitar and Pushpa Veena 
Anandi Bhattacharya - Vocals
Subashish Bhattacharya - Tabla
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Catching up with "the world's greatest slide guitarist" Debashish Bhattacharya and the amazing singer Anandi Bhattacharya before they take off for Ragas Live Festival 2024. 

As excitement builds for their performance this Fall at the Ragas Live Festival, we have a chat with Afghan superstars Homayoun Sakhi & Salar Nader. As the standard-bearers of Afghan traditional music, rubab master Homayoun Sakhi and tabla virtuoso Salar Nader carrythe rich and varied legacy of classical compositions and folk melodies of this ancient Central Asian nation.At the heart of this musical odyssey lie the enchanting sounds of the rubab, Afghanistan's revered 21-stringed lute,renowned for its hauntingly soulful timbre. Accompanied by the tabla's rhythmic pulse, Salar's innovative fusion of Afghanand Indian percussion draws out the musical parallels with Hindustani music, exploring the essence of Ragas and theprofound connection between two diverse yet harmonious traditions.These master musicians have perfected their art in the traditional ustâd-shâgird apprenticeship in the wake of theirfamilies’ flight from Afghanistan following the chaos of the Soviet invasion – Salar, disciple of the legendary Ustad ZakirHussain; and Homayoun, disciple of the revered Afghan Rubab maestro Ustad Mohammed Omar. Salar has touredextensively with NEA Jazz Master Stanley Clarke, appeared on Broadway with “The Kite Runner,” and together withHomayoun Sakhi took part in a series of recordings of the music of Afghanistan and Central Asia sponsored by Aga KhanMusic Initiative for the Smithsonian Folkways label.In a time when music has been banned in Afghanistan, the music of these master musicians serves as a powerfulreminder of the resilience and importance of preserving cultural heritage.www.salarnader.comwww.homayounsakhi.com

We get to hang with Michael Gordon, the prolific composer, co-founder/co-artistic director of Bang on a Can! 
Michael Gordon’s music merges subtle rhythmic invention with incredible power embodying, in the words of The New Yorker‘s Alex Ross, “the fury of punk rock, the nervous brilliance of free jazz and the intransigence of classical modernism.” Over the course of his composing career, Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio. Transcending categorization, this music represents the collision of mysterious introspection and brutal directness.

We hang with the great multi-instrumentalist, singer, song leader, composer and instrument designer Mark Stewart!   I'd been dreaming of doing this interview for years, and the upcoming Bang on a Can LOUD Festival (August 1-4 at Mass MoCA) was the perfect catalyst to make this finally happen.  As musical director for Paul Simon’s band, he has recorded and toured with Simon since 1998.  A founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars and the duo Polygraph Lounge with keyboard & theremin wizard Rob Schwimmer, Mark has also worked with Steve Reich, Sting, Anthony Braxton, Bob Dylan, Wynton Marsalis, Meredith Monk, Stevie Wonder, Phillip Glass, Iva Bittova, Bruce Springsteen, Terry Riley, Ornette Coleman, Edie Brickell, Don Byron, Joan Baez, Hugh Masakela, Paul McCartney, Cecil Taylor, Bill Frisell, Jimmy Cliff, Charles Wourinen, the Everly Brothers, Steve Gadd, Fred Frith, Alison Krauss, David Krakauer & Klezmer Madness, Bobby McFerrin, David Byrne, James Taylor, The Roches, Aaron Neville, Bette Midler, and Marc Ribot. He has worked extensively with composer Elliot Goldenthal on music for the films The Glorias, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Across the Universe, Titus, The Butcher Boy, The Good Thief, In Dreams and Heat. He has designed instruments for Julie Taymor’s Midsummer Nights Dream & Theater For A New Audience’s production of King Lear. He is the inventor of the WhirlyCopter, a bicycle-powered Pythagorean choir of singing tubes and the Big Boing, a 24 ft. sonic banquet table Mbira that seats 30 children playing 490 found objects, and he is a Visiting Lecturer in musical instrument design & performance practice at MIT. Mark is also a curator at MASS MoCA of the immersive Gunnar Schonbeck exhibit of musical instruments and co-founder of SoundstewArt, a company that designs immersive sound environments & community music making experiences. Since 2012, he has been the Artistic Director of Guitar Mash, leading the participatory communal Urban Campfires together with renowned artists sharing their favorite songs and life stories. Mark can be heard on Blue Note, Warner Bros., Sony, Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Nonesuch, Label Bleu, Resonance Magnetique, Cantaloupe and CRI recordings. He lives in Brooklyn, NY & North Adams, MA, playing, singing & writing popular music, semi-popular music and unpopular music, whilst designing instruments that everyone can play.Mark Stewart! Mark has The LOUD weekend is coming up at Mass MoCA August 1st, providing a great excuse to speak 

Ragas Live Festival 2023 opened with this stunning sitar set from Gaurav Mazumdar—legendary disciple of Pt. Ravi Shankar—accompanied by Umesh Banerjee on the tabla.8PM Set of the 24 Hour Ragas Live Festival at Pioneer Works 10.14.23 Ragas Live Festival is produced by Pioneer Works in collaboration with NYC Radio Live, Brooklyn Raga Massive and the Society for Arts and Culture of South Asia. We’re pleased to announce Ragas Live Festival will return to Pioneer Works on October 19–20, 2024: http://www.ragaslive.com

We hang with the legendary bassist of the Meters at his home in New Orleans! 
George Porter Jr. founded The Meters in 1965 alongside Art Neville, Leo Nocentelli and Joseph Zigaboo Modeliste. Known as one of the progenitors of funk with Sly & The Family Stone and Parliament Funkadelic, The Meters carved their own place in history with syncopated polyrhythms and grooves inherited from New Orleans’ deep African musical roots. Porter’s heavy pockets and fat notes created the rubbery bass lines behind anthems like “Cissy Strut” off the group’s self-titled 1969 debut — The Meters’ greatest commercial single that reached No. 4 on the R&B chart and No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. 
The Meters became the house band for Allen Toussaint’s recording label and studio in New Orleans, backing records for Dr. John, Paul McCartney, Lee Dorsey, Earl King, Robert Palmer and Patty Labelle’s No. 1 hit, “Lady Marmalade”.

This was a meeting of musical royalty from Mauritania, vocalist Noura Mint Seymali, with her husband  Jeiche Ould Chighaly on fretless electric guitar collaborating for the first time with Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Jay Gandhi (bansuri flute) and Ehren Hanson (tabla).
It was a spontaneous and beautiful meeting of two musical worlds, broadcast live at WKCR and very much inspired our whole Africa/India Series.