Guest artist Ravi Padmanabha to give tabla drumming clinic

The SUNY Fredonia School of Music will host Ravi Padmanabha on April 20 for a discussion and performance on the use of traditional elements of drumming and musical structure in more current styles of music making.

Students will have the opportunity to learn from Padmanabha in a clinic and master class at 5 p.m. followed by the artist’s dual performance with Tom Chess at 6 p.m., featuring instruments such as the ney, oud, and guitar. Both events will be held in the Diers Recital Hall and are free and open to the public.

Ravi Padmanabha is a percussionist, multi-instrumentalist, improviser/composer. His initial interest was in drum set which later led to a variety of world instruments. From an early age, Ravi was exposed to Indian Classical music. At age 18, he began his formal Tabla studies with Pandit Ananda Gopal, and later with Pandit Samar Saha of Calcutta. He then continued with Tabla Maestro Pandit Sharda Sahai. He worked for Trivini, an Indian Classical Music organization, which allowed him to meet and learn more about his rich musical heritage. While living in Buffalo Ravi spent many years performing in a wide variety of musical styles, including jazz, world, and experimental music. He has helped form many groups, such as Hylozoa with Steve Baczkowski on winds, Tala Rasa with Ron Locurto on guitar, and Omkara with Naryan Padmanabha on santoor and Aneal Padmanabha on guitar. Ravi has performed at Buffalo's Drum Day and Maelstrom Percussion Ensembles Master Drummers Program.

Tomchess is a Multi-instrumentalist/Improviser/Composer. He plays Reeds, Western Flute, Arabic/Turkish Ney flute, Oud, and Guitar, and has a history of using electronics, sampling, live-sampling, and loops in his work. He has performed with Drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson' Decoding Society, Butch Morris's Sheng Skyscraper, recorded with Tenor players Dewey Redman, Pharoah Sanders, Morrocan Sintarist Hassan Hakmoun and Butch Morris, and has also led a guitar trio with Drummer Phil Haynes and bassist Drew Gress called Seven Times a Year. He has studied Middle/Near Eastern and West African music, studied with Bassam Saba, Tidiani Bangoura, Abdul Aziz Tourè and Mohammad Camarra, and spent time in West Africa playing and performing. He currently lives in NYC where he performs with his different ensembles and works as a freelance musician.

For more information, please visit www.fredonia.edu/music.