naren budhakar

Naren Budhakar was born in Pune, the cultural capital of western India to a musical family. His father, as a violinist, provided Naren his earliest exposure to Indian classical music. His cousin, Shashikant Purandare, was a lifelong student of the Delhi style of percussion. Naren took his initial lessons with him. His hometown provided him with many opportunities to listen to great musicians. Naren's own home was welcoming to artists. On one memorable occasion, Ustad Shaikh Dawood, the great tabla wizard visited his household and gave a performance for a handful of family members. Growing up in this rich culture was like a first hand workshop in music appreciation with the masters of Indian classical music. As a young artist Naren represented his school and college in cultural festivals. He also performed on the Voice of Youth program on Pune radio. He also wrote articles about music that were published in such reputed newspapers as The Times of India and Loksatta.

Since coming to America Naren has pursued his musical career with unrelenting dedication. He further studied with Samir Chatterji , the renowned tabla maestro from Kolkata and Shabbir Nissar, the tabla wizard from Hyderabad and the son of legendary Ustad Shaikh Dawood. Naren's aesthetic sense allows him to complement his percussion to many different music forms.He has performed with artists from all three categories namely vocal, instrumental and dance music.

jim feist

Jim Feist has been performing and teaching the tabla for the last 16 years. He has traveled to India several times to learn tabla from the late, legendary Ustad Allah Rakha, and Vibhav Nageshkar. Jim is currently under the tutelage of Ustad Allah Rakha's celebrated disciple, Yogesh Samsi. He has also studied from Sukvinder Singh Namdhari, Samir Chatterji, Anand Badamakar, and a handful of other notable players. Jim has been recorded on albums by composer Kanniks Kannikeswaran for two all India releases, and an album of pure Dhrupad music called "Banaras". He has also recorded with the group he co-founded Mohenjo Daro ( "Baksheesh" on Tandem Records and "Rajdhani Express" also on Tandem records ). Jim also composed the music and performed all the percussion on his debut solo disc "Indus Red". As a session tabla player Jim has been recorded on many discs over the years. He also performed in the critically acclaimed Indian show Shanti (2004,2005,2006) in Cincinnati, Ohio. He composed and performed music for the documentary "Made in India?" He has performed with the famed vocalist Ashiq Khan in Rajasthan, India and has had successful tabla solo's in India. He has performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on several occassions, and at the Montreal Jazz-Festival twice (2002 and 2005) with Mohenjo Daro. He has shared the stage with many fusion stalwarts including The Buddy Rich Big Band bassist Dave Larocca and Fareed Haque. He has also performed solo tabla with his teacher Yogesh Samsi. Jim has also accompanied Bollywood songster Mahendra Kapoor, Budhadev Das Gupta, Laxmi Shankar, and Kankana Banerjee, and a host of other Indian Classical musicians.

Jim traveled to India to continue his studies for 6 months in September '06 thanks to a grant he won from the American Institute of Indian Studies. As an educator Jim has held very successful clinics and lec/dems all over the mid-west in colleges and high schools. He has been a featured clinician at Marshall University and has lectured at Taylor University among many others. He teaches privately in Dayton and Cincinnati Ohio. Jim shares his time between Cincinnati, Ohio and Pune, India these days.

robin sukhadia

A trained alto saxophone jazz musician, Robin has been studying tabla (classical south Asian drums) under Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California for the past five and a half years. He credits his parents for unconditionally supporting his love for music at an early age. He took his first tabla lesson in India in 1997, during a seminal six month journey there as part of the School for International Training's semester abroad program.

He has helped produce electronic soundtracks and streaming audio/video solutions for filmmakers and non-profit organizations, and specializes in electronic beat creation using the Akai MPC2000. He recently returned from a journey to Bengal and Gujarat, India on behalf of Project Ahimsa, a foundation focused on developing music education initiatives for impoverished communities ravaged by violence.

Robin teaches and performs extensively throughout the United States and internationally. As a music educator, Robin continues to lead innovative tabla-centric workshops for at risk youth and children affected by violence. Twice a year, he conducts immersive week long workshops focused on tabla and electronica at Eagle Rock School, a progressive residential school for bright youth who have failed in traditional educational environments.

Robin is currently performing and recording with JBoogie's Dubtronic Science (OM Records), Walter Kitundu (FIELD), Kush Arora (Record Label Records), micropixie, Jesse Clark and Sandeep Bhatt. He has performed and collaborated with Tabla Rasa, Wallace Harvey, Odell, Leena Pendharker, Ameet Mehta (part time chiller), Eric Farmer (the Multiplist) and Gaayatri Kundinya.

He currently serves as Performing Artists Manager at the Ali Akbar College of Music, booking the Institute ?s artists worldwide. As International Grants Program Director for Project Ahimsa, Robin travels regularly to India to support innovative music education initiatives in communities affected by violence. Robin holds a BS in Biochemistry and a BA in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1997, he was awarded the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Multicultural Leadership at UNC Chapel Hill. He is currently pursuing an MFA in World Music (with a focus on south Asian percussion) at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts), in Los Angeles, CA.