Virtuoso Violinist L. Shankar Comes To Roulette Next Month

Robert Browning Associates, Lotus Music & Dance, and Roulette present virtuoso violinist returns to New York L. SHANKAR with ABHIJIT BANERJEE & ROHAN KRISHNAMURTHY in INDIAN MASTERS on Saturday April 2, 2022 at 8:00 PM. The event takes place at Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue at 3rd Avenue, Downtown Brooklyn.

Tickets: $25 in advance; $30 at door; $20 students, seniors at door
Box office 917-263-0363

Info & tickets: https://www.robertbrowningassociates.com/21-22-l-shankar.html

The internationally renowned violinist/singer/composer L. Shankar has been acclaimed for his deeply soulful performances of Indian classical music. In addition to appearing as a major soloist, he has also accompanied many of South India's leading vocalists, and, in the 1970s co-founded, with John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, and Vikku Vinayakram, the legendary Indo-jazz group Shakti. In the 1980s, he introduced a 10-string double violin capable of covering the whole range of the orchestra's string section from violin to double bass. To date, he has continued to expand the international audience for Indian music, often combining North Indian (Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic) styles. He will be accompanied by Abhijit Banerjee, one of the top-ranking tabla (tuned hand drums) players of his generation, and Rohan Krishnamurthy (mrdangam - barrel drum, kanjira - small frame drum), a leading voice in South Indian classical and cross-genre music in the South Asian diaspora.

L. Shankar, born into a renowned family of musicians, is the son and disciple of V. Lakshminarayana and L. Seethalakshmi. He began to study the violin at the age of five, and made his first solo concert appearance at the age of seven. In the early part of his career, he accompanied masters of the South Indian vocal tradition, was a member of a trio with his brothers L. Vaidyanathan and L. Subramaniam, and extensively performed with the great mrdangam player Palghat Mani Iyer. In India, he received numerous awards for his outstanding musicianship, including the Best Violinist Award from the Madras Music Academy. He came to the US in 1969, where his work as a soloist and collaborator with such artists as Zakir Husain, John McLaughlin and Vikku Vinayakram placed him in the forefront of expanding the horizons of Indian music. He toured extensively with Peter Gabriel and co-wrote with him the Grammy award-winning soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ. He has also worked as a composer, arranger, producer, singer, and violinist with Frank Zappa, Phil Collins, Talking Heads, Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Van Morrison, and U2, among others. He has sold over 100 million albums through his solo projects and collaborations.

Abhijit Banerjee is a pioneering disciple of the illustrious guru, the late Pt. Jnan Prakash Ghosh. He has held center stage in all of the major classical music festivals in India and toured extensively in the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan, Australia, South Africa and Southeast Asia, giving concerts and conducting workshops. He has accompanied many of India's major musicians, including Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee, Amjad Ali Khan, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Parveen Sultana and Shivkumar Sharma. In addition to his contributions to classical Indian music, he has left his mark in crossover music as a performer and composer and worked with Ry Cooder, Larry Coryell and Trilok Gurtu. He has scored music for Indian television, and won the National Award for Documentary Music for The Trail, a film about Calcutta. He founded and established the Dhwani Academy of Percussion Music in Los Angeles, New York, Singapore and Kolkata; among its accomplishments, the Academy has initiated needy blind children into the art of music. He is also head of the department of tabla at Chinmaya Viswavidyapeeth, Pune, Maharashtra.

Rohan Krishnamurthy received mrdangam training from the esteemed guru, Sri Guryvayur Dorai, and studied jazz and funk drum set with Alan Hall at the California jazz Conservatory and tabla with Swapan Chaudhuri at the Ali Akbar College of Music. Distinguished as a soloist, composer and collaborator, he performed with leading artists of classical Indian music, including M. Balamuralikrishna, T.N.Krishnan, L. Subramaniam and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, and spearheaded numerous cross-genre collaborations with jazz ensembles, orchestras, and global musicians. He toured Written in Water with the Ragamala Dance Company and Iraqi trumpeter/vocalist/santur player Amir ElSaffar. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the Eastman School of Music and directs the RohanRhythm Percussion Studio. He is the recipient of prestigious international awards and grants, including recent commissions from the San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Foundation, and Goethe Institute (Germany), and teaches in the Music Department at Ohlone College in the San Francisco Bay Area. His patented RohanRhythm drum tuning system is available worldwide.

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