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The NSPA Jukebox
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Home > Jukebox Archive > 22nd August, 2014
The stories we tell!
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Hello there!
Travelling musicians can never really predict the audiences they will be playing for - and Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis' anecdote from his tour in Istanbul serves to remind musicians everywhere why they do what they do, serves to highlight the vulnerability and courage it takes to get out on the streets and offer people a piece of their soul by giving them their music -
"We were close to a housing project. A girl sat up on the balcony, she was maybe thirteen or fourteen. The people kept saying, "She speaks English, she's studying English in school." So she spoke a little broken English, talked to us. Then she disappeared. Dusk started to come on. After a moment, she reappeared, coming down to the street with some Turkish coffee for us in what had been her family's best silverware. She poured it and stood there while we drank it. It was tender, man; had a sweetness to it. And that's the soulful thing about playing: you offer something to somebody. You don't know if they'll like it, but you offer it."
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Final Destination: The International Airport!
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The NSPA's artists are enjoying a collaboration with Mumbai's domestic and international airports this week, and are reprising performances there after pilot performances held last month! This Monday (the 18th), Carnatic violinist Mukund Ramaswamy, mridangam player Dakshinamurthy, Rajasthani and Punjabi folk singer and guitarist Saurabh Kaushal, and tabla player Manoj Sharma surprised an unsuspecting audience with some marvelous live music, relieving them from the boredom of waiting to board their flights! Similar performances happened at the domestic airport with our multi-percussionists Hari Bhusal and Kailas Jadhav later in the week, who had the passengers jamming with them!
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Achchhai Pandey's Uttar Bharatiya interactive workshop!
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"Few people truly appreciate the fact that music accompanies one throughout their life's journey, and is there to celebrate every milestone and every memory," lamented Allahabadi singer Achchhai Pandey to us one day. This is why we designed an interactive workshop for the students at Colaba Municipal School (one of the venues for our Art Literacy Mission) that could showcase the role Awadhi folk songs play, starting from one's birth and ending only at their deathbed! The children were taught a "sohar" - commonly sung to celebrate birth - and went on to celebrate the phase of childhood with a "chanda mama" lullaby, Achcchaiji's original composition, before moving onto some serious and patriotic numbers. View all art literacy videos >>>
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As always, our performances at Gold's Gym (Marol) continue every Thursday from 7 - 8 pm, and those at Leaping Windows comic library and cafe (Versova) are from 8 - 10 pm on Thursdays as well.
Upcoming Events Update: Our Carnatic violinist Mukund Ramaswamy will be performing short classical pieces at a poetry event called "To Catch a Poem" at Kitab Khana (Fort) on September 27 at 5.45 pm. He will also be collaborating with our Western classical violinist Roger Mendonca and folk guitarist Rohit Astekar on a jugalbandhi of genres for an event at MCubed Library (opposite Bandra Gymkhana) on September 7 from 6 - 7 pm. Both the events are NSPA collaborations, and we hope you will join us there!
Have a lovely weekend!
Yours,
The NSPA
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