Document text
Season by St. Clair Sep 22, 2005 12:00 AM A A Take a vacation to India without leaving the Rogue Valley. Join St. Clair Productions in a concert of music from India featuring, from India, Mahesh Kale on vocals and, from Nepal, Homnath Upadhyaya on tabla, on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Unitarian Center, Fourth and C streets, Ashland. Tickets are $15 in advance, $17 at the door and $8 for kids 5-17. Tickets are available online at www.stclairevents.com, at the Music Coop in the A Street Marketplace, or by calling 535-3562. Kale is a young, talented vocalist of Indian Classical music. Born in 1976, he delighted an audience of over 5,000 at a religious place, & Gondavale,& with the rendition of a devotional song at the tender age of 3. In addition to traditional ragas, Kale also has been trained in various styles of semi-classical music including Thumri, Tappa, Bhajan, Bhavgeet, Natyageet, etc. Kale& s performances are a blend of several gharanas (schools of music). Endowed with a rich resonant voice, he has an excellent command over both rhythm and melody. Kale has given numerous solo concerts in his homeland of India, in places like Pune, Mumbai, Goa, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Indore and throughout the United States. He has appeared on television and radio in India and has performed as a vocal support to his gurus in prestigious concerts all over India, including Sawai Gandharva Mahotsav (Pune), Malhar Utsav (Mumbai), and Spic Macay National Convention to name a few. Kale is currently pursuing his master& s at Santa Clara University in California. Upadhyaya, who has played tabla for more than 40 years, has been a royal court musician for the kings of Nepal for many years. His gurus include Pandit Ramji Mishra of Benares, Shambhu Mishra of Kathmandu, Nepal, and the legendary tabla player Ahmedjaan Thirakwa. Upadhyaya has taught and performed internationally and has numerous students all over the world. He has served as an instructor at the Royal Nepal Academy, Kathmandu. He has played in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the United States, India Pakistan and Bangladesh. Early in his career, Upadhyaya played in the film orchestra of music director S. D. Burman. Upadhyaya is the recipient of the Kirateshwar Sangeetshram award, the Narayan Sangeet Pratishthan fellowship from Royal Nepal Academy for research, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Collaborative Projects Grant at University of California - Santa Barbara. Currently he teaches tabla at the University of California - Santa Barbara. — — — David & Honeyboy& Edwards plays at the — Sixth Annual Rogue Valley Blues Festival, Jan. 13-15 at the Historic Ashland — Armory. The festival is also coordinated by St. Clair Productions. Submitted photo Eclectic music and more Mahesh Kale kicks off St. Clair Productions& Eclectic Music and More series, which takes place at the Unitarian Center, Fourth and C streets. St. Clair Productions also produces the Rogue Valley Blues Festival during Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. The upcoming one is the sixth annual. On Oct. 15 at 8 p.m., the series continues with Swami Beyondananda& s & Wake Up Laughing& performance. The swami& s comedy has been called & irreverently uplifting& and has been described both as & comedy disguised as wisdom& and & wisdom disguised as comedy.& Swami Beyondananda& s latest mission is to revitalize the body politic by turning spiritual & devotees& into political & votees.& He asks you to join his Right-to-Laugh Party to help find solutions to world problems by overcoming gravity with levity. On Oct. 16, the swami& s alter ego, Steve Bhaerman, will lead a workshop entitled & Comedy as a Healing Art& from 2 to 5 p.m. Canadian songwriter James Keelaghan follows on Oct. 21 at 8 p.m. Keelaghan is renowned for mining the past for musical inspiration. His songs tell the stories of extraordinary events from history through the eyes of ordinary people, thus turning these events into deeply moving pieces. He has eight albums, three Juno nominations (the equivalent of the Grammies) and one Juno award. — — — Canadian songwriter James Keelaghan plays on Oct. — 21. Submitted photo For guitar lovers, Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. features fingerstyle guitarists Alex de Grassi and, from Hungary, Sándor Szabó. Each of de Grassi& s pieces weaves melody, counter-melody, bass, harmony rhythm and cross-rhythms into a unified whole. De Grassi established himself as a guitarist and composer in the late 1970s with his classic recording & Turning: Turning Back,& which Acoustic Guitar Magazine recently cited as one of the top 10 essential fingerstyle recordings of all time. He has 13 recordings. Szabó performs his own compositions, Jimi Hendrix tunes and traditional Hungarian folk tunes on six-, eight-, 13 and 16-string guitars. Then, on Nov. 19 at 7:30 p.m., two wonderful women songwriters join forces for a double bill. Laura Love is an African-American funk bassist with an astonishing voice, who is influenced by blues, bluegrass, jazz, folk, gospel, reggae and country. She is joined by guitarist Jen Todd for this concert. SONiA of Disappear Fear has won numerous awards, including two GLAMA awards and one GLAAD Media award. She writes frank and captivating love songs and confronts the hypocrisies and biases of our culture with a positive message of openness and optimism. Songwriter, storyteller, roustabout and political anarchist Utah Phillips performs on Feb. 2 at 8 p.m. Dubbed & the Golden Voice of the Great Southwest,& Phillips turned 70 this year and is still hard at work sharing songs and ideas that make people think. He recently released & Starlight on the Rails,& a songbook, four-CD set with 61 songs and a 12-page booklet with introductions and pictures. Next we travel to Ireland with Celtic harpist and storyteller Patrick Ball on Feb. 24 at 8 p.m. In playing the ancient, legendary brass-strung harp of Ireland with its crystalline, bell-like voice, and in telling the marvelous tales of wit and enchantment, Ball carries on two of the most cherished traditions of Celtic culture. He has nine instrumental and three spoken-word recordings. From Ireland to India with a second concert of Indian ragas, this time performed by Shabda Kahn and friends on March — at 8 p.m. Kahn is the spiritual director of the Sufi Ruhaniat International Society, director of the Chisti Sabri School of Music and a disciple of the Tibetan Buddhist Master, the 12th Tai Situpa Rinpoche. Kahn spent 24 years developing as a vocalist under the guidance of the late Pandit Pran Nath. On March 4 and 5 from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Kahn will lead a workshop entitled & Passion for the Goal, Equanimity for What Arises.& — — — Alex DeGrassi will weave his acoustic guitar melodies — at the Unitarian Center Nov. 12. Submitted photo Then back across the world to Scotland with fiddler Alasdair Fraser and cellist Natalie Haas on March 24 at 8 p.m. This duo has created a buzz among Celtic music lovers at festivals and concerts across the U.S. and Europe. Their performances have been featured on nationally broadcast radio programs, including & Thistle Shamrock& and & Mountain Stage.& Their shows weave rocking, reeling rhythms, poignant melodies and exquisite musicianship. The final concert in this series is David Roth on April 7 at 8 p.m. Think James Taylor meets Jerry Seinfeld meets Joe Hill. Roth& s concerts are filled with inspiring songs and stories that celebrate ordinary people who do extraordinary things, the trials and tribulations of living in our crazy and complicated world, personal relationships, psychology and spirituality, ranging from poignant to hilarious, and everything in between. His song & Manuel Garcia,& based on a true story of one man& s battle with cancer, appears in the & Chicken Soup for the Soul& series. A Roth song is featured at the end of each chapter in Barbara Glanz& s McGraw-Hill business best-seller, & Care Packages for the Workplace,& and in her sequel, & Care Packages for the Home& (Andrews-McMeel). Blues Festival The Sixth Annual Rogue Valley Blues Festival, Jan. 13-15 at the Historic Ashland Armory (Oak and B streets), will feature some really fine acts as well. At Friday evening& s acoustic concert, enjoy the Mississippi Delta music of David & Honeyboy& Edwards & 90 years old, and contemporary of Robert Johnson. He& s joined by Michael Frank on harmonica. Mary Flower performs various styles of acoustic blues, and Walker T. Ryan opens the show. Saturday evening, dance to the music of Little Charlie and the Nightcats and Ellen Sheeley and the Blues Express. There are hands-on workshops and free performances at the Standing Stone and Alex& s on Saturday and Sunday and a children& s stage (place TBA) on Saturday. — — African-American funk bassist Laura Love plays — Nov. 19. Submitted photo