Author Archives: Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Concert Review: Roopa Panesar, Sitar Virtuoso Makes Her New York Debut

Women's Voices FestivalDate: October 4, 2014
Venue: St. Peter’s Church (NY)
Review by Dawoud Kringle

HarmoNYom in collaboration with Robert Browning Associates kicked off its Women’s Voices Festival at St. Peter’s Church with the New York debut of London based sitarist Roopa Panesar.

Panesar began training at the age of seven under sitar maestro Ustad Dharambir Singh. She also studied under Pandit Arvind Parikh, Ustad Shahid Parvez, Ustad Bahauddin Dagar, Ustad Siraj Khan and Pt. Ajoy Chakroborty. As well as being deeply rooted in the classical tradition, Roopa has collaborated with musicians from different genres such as Talvin Singh, Laura Wright and Dirk Brosse to name a few. Roopa has toured extensively in the UK, Europe and USA, and released her debut album Khoj in 2011. She also teaches the sitar, and is involved in numerous projects to inspire and educate the next generation of Indian classical musicians.

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Event review: “Killer Road” by Soundwalk Collective, Jesse & Patti Smith and Blake Carrington…a dynamic and invigorating performance that felt like a purgatorial line between reality and the afterlife

Crossing The LineDate: October 2, 2014
Venue: French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)
Review by Dante Mann
Photos courtesy of FIAF

Ushering the summer into the fall New York’s premiere French cultural center, French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) presents its annual fall festival Crossing the Line.

Killer Road w. Patti SmithI was lucky enough to catch a one night only performance of Killer Road a hypnotic meditation on the idea of perpetual motion and the cycle of life and death. The live performance featured Patti Smith reciting poetry written by Nico, with daughter Jesse Paris Smith, Soundwalk Collective, and a visual installation by Blake Carrington.

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Event Review: FlickerLab and Sosala Ask “Are We Already Gone?”

Flickerlab LogoDate: September 21 through September 28, 2014
Venue: FlickerLab (NY)
Review by Dawoud Kringle

ARE WE ALREADY GONE? Artists on the Art of Leaving is an exhibit / art installation held at FlickerLab, curated by Negin Sharifzadeh. FlickerLab held its final showing in Soho from September 21st – 28th 2014 (before astronomical rents forced them to move to Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood).

Ahmed Issawi, Director of Alwan for the Arts, says, “In so far as art should reflect its environment or contend with the problematics of representation, Are We Already Gone, curated by Negin Sharifzadeh, a variable composition of installations, sculptures, and conceptual visual and sound pieces, is emblematic of a world of impermanence, of wondering whether one has wandered away or is still here. Not merely are the works themselves concerned with incompletion, sculptural or architectural suspension, identity not as a notion bequeathed through birth rather as a transformative ongoing process of migration and exile, but more so in where the “art” is displayed: in closets, on kitchen counters, workplace, home, if we know what home is anymore. There is a bifurcation of the notion of time and space. We are already gone for certain, but where we are going or are going qua going is the way it is going to go, is perhaps what Sharifzadeh, an Iranian in Brooklyn, New York, subconsciously trying to explore.”

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Concert Review: Brooklyn Raga Massive presents Paula Jeanine Bennett.’s Melody Sky

Photo courtesy of Paula J. Bennet with Lee Boice

Photo courtesy of Paula J. Bennet with Lee Boice

Date: October 1, 2014
Venue: Art Cafe (NY)
Concert review by Dawoud Kringle

On Wednesday, October 1st, the first real chill of autumn filled the Brooklyn night was swept up with the sound of a Rumi-esque poem leading the way into a serene flowing song. The vocals ecstatically glided through the crystalline guitar harmonies and sitar melodies.

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