Featuring two ensembles that stand at the vanguard of contemporary Indian classical music, this double-bill concert brings beautiful traditional aesthetics into the hands of the next generation.

Alam Khan, the son of the great Ali Akbar Khan, began studying with his father when he was seven and performed throughout the world with the late maestro. In the past decade, Alam has established himself as a solo artist on the sarode, a resonant, fretless stringed instrument used mainly in northern Indian classical music. He received a prestigious Individual Artist's Grant from the Marin Arts Council in 2003, and has performed alongside some of the greatest tabla players such as Pt. Swapan Chaudhuri and Ustad Zakir Hussain. Alam continues to carry on his family legacy and the music of the Maihar school of Hindustani music, performing and teaching at the Ali Akbar College of Music in California.

Gautam Tejas Ganeshan's New Directions group, which was commissioned in 2009 by the San Francisco Foundation, explores the ecstatic edge of contemporary Indian classical music. With an all-acoustic focus, the group performs new music from within an old tradition. Gautam frees Carnatic vocal virtuosity to access its angular outer reaches, and Anantha R. Krishnan contributes an unflinching, intelligent intensity on the mridangam (south Indian barrel-drum) with a sophisticated technique and powerful repertoire. The group was featured in the 2009 SF International Arts Festival at the Cowell Theater in Fort Mason (SF). Gautam is the founder and director of the Sangati Community Center for South Asian Music.

Visit the Ali Akbar College of Music website

Visit the Sangati Center website