Friday April 11

Deirdre Cartwright/Baluji Shrivastav ensemble
Deirdre Cartwright guitar, Baluji Shrivastav sitar, Alison Rayner bass, Linda Shanovitch, vocals, foot percussion, Yosuf Ali Khan tabla drums

Indian sitar player explores Ragas and improvisation with jazz guitarist Deirdre Cartwright.

Baluji Shrivastav is one of the greatest instrumentalists India has produced excelling in sitar, surbahar, dilruba, pakhavaj and tabla.

“Virtuoso multi-instrumentalist” The Times

Firmly established in the Hindustani classical tradition he delights in exploring music in all its forms – recently entertaining the world at the closing ceremony of 2012 Paralympic Games with Chris Martin and Coldplay. He composes for film, dance, theatre and original works for Western orchestras and Indian ensembles. He has recorded with Massive Attack, Madness, the Doves, Amorphous Androgynous, and performed with great artists such as Stevie Wonder.  He has his own Jazz ensemble Jazz Orient/Re-Orient and has recorded several albums.

plus Shama Rahman Quartet 

Sitar and vocals from rising young composer

The Shama Rahman Band are masters of what they dub “Urban Folk” – mixing music from English, Bengali, Bulgarian and West African traditions, jazz to dubstep, punk to folk, spoken word to bosa nova, Singer/Sitarist/Composer Shama weaves stories that start life as poems and take flight as songs. The album features musicians from Bengal, Britain and around the world, recorded in support from Gabriel Prokofiev’s Non-Classical studios. It is already garnering praise from the likes of Gilles Peterson. The sitar is played in the context of storytelling, musically arranged to sit within layered harmonies and complex grooves of a 4-piece band. Expect a performance of challenging musical beauty.

June 13

Annie Whitehead 4
Trombone virtuoso with South African and ska influences.
with Steve Lodder keyboards, Jennifer Maidman bass, Liam Genockey drums

plus World Music Workshop Big Band.
An exciting blend of music from twenty horns, featuring jazz, african and latin grooves, under the leadership of Annie Whitehead. Repertoire includes tunes by Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Duke Ellington and Diane McLoughlin.