10-24-05
Behrend books “A Passage to India”
Kiran Ahluwalia will perform with Shafaatullah Khan on Friday, Nov. 4, as part of the "A Passage to India" festival. |
Join musicians, dancers, chefs and more for A Passage to India, Penn State Behrend’s November celebration of Indian culture, music, dance, and food. “This event represents a huge undertaking. We actually began planning it last spring,” said Daniel Barnard, lecturer in music at the college. “It’s a collaboration of many college faculty and staff, the Asian Student Organization, and the Friends of South Asian Music, which is active locally in bringing diverse arts programming to the region.” Beginning at 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4, Indian food will be available for purchase in the Wintergarden of the Reed Union Building. Entertainment begins at 6:20 p.m. with authentic Indian dance performed by Penn State Behrend students Deepti Soni, a political science major, and plastics engineering technology major Nehal Kachalia. |
The featured performers, internationally known musicians Kiran Ahluwalia and Shafaatullah Khan, will begin to play at 7 p.m. Their performance marks the debut of Music at Night: The Logan Series, a schedule of nighttime concerts by leading chamber, classical, and world music ensembles. There will be a total of three evening concerts this season.
Ahluwalia, an up-and-comer in world music, has devoted much of her life to learning the art of Indian vocal music. She sings two distinct styles of vocal music from the Indian subcontinent, the ghazal poetic song and the folk songs of the Punjab. Ghazals explore the many aspects of the human condition; Ahluwalia interprets the poets’ words through her music.
Safaatullah Khan is an eighth-generation musician in a family that traces its lineage to the 16th century court of Moghal Emperor Akbar, and will play both sitar and tabla in his Penn State Behrend performance. Sitar, the most familiar Indian instrument, is a member of the lute family fashioned from a hollow gourd and teakwood. It has up to 26 strings carried on two separate bridges. Tabla is the common name for a set of two drums, the tabla and the bayan. Both have goatskin heads and are filled with a paste of iron filings and flour, but the tabla’s body is wooden while the bayan is made of metal. “It’s unusual that someone be so skilled at both instruments, because each takes a long time to master,” Barnard said.
Tickets for this combined performance are priced at $15 for adults, $10 for students, and $40 for a family. Tickets can be purchased at the Reed Union Building Desk on campus or online at http://pennstatebehrend.psu.edu/musicatnoon.