08 Mar 2010 Cape Town guitarist Derek Gripper will perform three shows with master Indian tabla player Udai Mazumdar who will be visiting Cape Town this March for a short tour.  

Udai Mazumdar is a former student and accompanist to the legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar and is an accompanist to many of India's top soloists, playing regular concerts in India, Europe, and the US. Derek Gripper's unique Cape-tinged guitar language has taken him to over eleven countries and earned him a following of South Africans interested in hearing "a new insight into South Africa and its music." Derek and Udai first met while performing together in Switzerland last year, and decided to collaborate once again so as to further explore the "meeting point between Indian classical, Western classical, and the sounds and landscapes of the Western Cape."

Thursday the 25th of March will see the duo at The Alliance Francaise, on Friday the 26th at the SABC Beach Road Auditorium where they will be supported by local pianist Kyle Shepherd, and their final show in Cape Town will be at the beautifully intimate Kalk Bay venue The Forge on Saturday the 27th of March.
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Udai Mazumdar - (biog from www.mazumdar-udai.com)
Udai hails from a family of musicians and fine artistes of   Allahabad, India.  His father, the Late Partho Sarathy Mazumdar, is among the first-generation of guitarists in the field of Indian Classical music.

A versatile tabla player of the Benares Gharana, and also a composer of great finesse, Udai has over the years, consciously evolved into an evocative and expressive tabla player. This could also be attributed to his musicianship and sensitive approach both artistically and professionally. His dedication and commitment to the classical music genre and the time-tested Indian drum has made him equally adept as a soloist and as an accompanist. Udai, thus, naturally aspires to apply his skills to integrate the tabla as part of a musical whole in the performance arena.

As Udai’s initial training was in vocal music, it was only natural for him to be attracted towards the nuances of composing but he was also simultaneously drawn to the resonating rhythmic possibilities of the tabla. His first encounter with the tabla was at the age of 7 years. In 1981, he turned to the eminent Pandit Ashoutosh Bhattacharya, one of the foremost disciples of the legendary Pandit Kanthe Maharaj, to hone his skills. In 1989, Udai shifted to Delhi to further his musical experience and became the disciple of the world-renowned Sitar Maestro, Bharat Ratna Pandit Ravi Shankar, lived with him and learnt the art of Tabla accompaniment.

Udai has participated in many noteworthy Indian and international festivals, besides playing for and with Pandit Ravi Shankar in different occasions, like performing before the Royal Families of England and Sweden, accompanied Pt. Ravi Shankar together with Ustad Zakir Hussain in a concert to mark Pt. Ravi Shankar’s 75th birth year. He is a regular performer on the Indian National Radio and television channels. Udai’s Indian travels have taken him to platforms such as the Durgalal Festival, Delhi, the Saptak Festival, Ahmedabad, Vasantahabba Festival, Bangalore etc. His international sojourns include the International Folk Festival Hungary, several International Drum Festivals, Germany, several World Music Festivals, Rome, the International Festival for the Chernobyl Victims in Minsk and the International Festivals for Contemporary Music in Mongolia, Odessa, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan.

Udai has also been recorded, aired and interviewed at the above mentioned International Festivals and by Radio DRS, Switzerland, Radio France and the BBC Radio. Udai also has credits on the CD’s “Echoes from India”, “Fulfillment”, „Reverberations – I“, Musik der Welt Bern” and „ShankaRagmala“(for Pandit Ravi Shankar’s 80th Birthday).

Establishing a rapport with music-lovers, Udai has won critical and general acclaim of a wide range of audiences through his memorable performances of the universal language of melody and rhythm.

Based in Basel, Switzerland and New Delhi, India, Udai is seriously engaged in performance, composing and teaching.


Derek Gripper - (biog from www.derekgripper.com)
Derek Gripper began his formal musical training at the age of six on the violin. After studying classical music for the next thirteen years he began to look further afield for musical inspiration. This search took him to India where he studied South Indian Carnatic music. On his return to South Africa he decided to focus on the guitar, trying to find a new direction for the instrument. He was attracted to the use of multiple layers in the music of Oliver Messiaen, the African-influenced structures of Steve Reich, as well as to guitar arrangements of the music of J.S.Bach. But it was when he met up with Cape Jazz trumpeter Alex van Heerden that he started to see that his previous studies could be used to find new directions for the music of the Western Cape.

The two musician's first recording in 2002, Sagtevlei (nominated for a Geraas award for best classical album of 2002) laid the groundwork for an entirely new Cape music, a music that the press called “avant-goema.” Here for the first time the compositional techniques of contemporary classical music were used to support the melodic and improvisational nature of Goema, the carnival music of Cape Town.

This recording laid the groundwork for his first solo album, Blomdoorns, a series of compositions on an experimental eight-string guitar. Here the rhythms he had heard in India combined with Cape style melodies and cyclical motives in a simplified guitar language that was entirely unique yet rooted in the Cape Town's rich and diverse musical history.

Over the next few years he further developed this musical language, switching to the traditional six-string guitar in 2004. It was when he met Hermann Hauser III, grandson of Segovia's legendary guitar maker, that he found the perfect instrument for the kind of magical introspection that jh heard in the landscapes and music of South Africa. Playing with this instrument Derek began to move towards a new style of composition, and a new way of engaging with the tradition of classical guitar composition

The 2008 CD Ayo documents the first series of compositions for this instrument, exhibiting the influence of musicians such as Brazil's Egberto Gismonti, Mali's Toumani Diabate and Japan’s Toru Takemitsu, uniting their work into new form of cyclical African music. His latest offering, a series of solo guitar works called Kai Kai, takes this new guitar language to a new level, further exploring the connections to the work of Gismonti, van Heerden, and traditional Cape music. Woven into the musical fabric are stories and images, giving a unique and evocative picture of South African history, its people and its music.

performance
Derek Gripper has performed concerts in Holland, Denmark, the U.K. and Ireland, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, India, Namibia, and all over South Africa.

festivals

• International Guitar Festival Aarhus, Denmark 2009
• Klein Karoo Kunste Fees 2009
• Cultivaria Festival Paarl 2009
• New Music Indaba, Grahamstown Festival 2004 and 2005

discography

• Sagtevlei  2002 (open record) – by van  Heerden/Gripper for strings and trumpet/accordion/voice
• Blomdoorns  2003 (open record) – compositions for solo 8-guitar
• Ayo 2008 (derekgripper.com) – compositions for solo guitar
• Songs for the Swans Left Behind 2008 (pfeffermintzgreen) vinyl release of Ayo
• Ale!x 2009 (derekgripper.com) – compositions from Ayo performed with van Heerden and Brydon Bolton.
• Prayers and Dances II 2009 - from the six solo by J.S.Bach for solo guitar
• Blomdoorns remaster 2009 (derekgripper.com)
• Sagtevlei remaster 2009  (derekgripper.com)
• Kai Kai 2009 (derekgripper.com) - compositions for solo guitar

education and awards

• Studied with many of the world’s leading guitarists (Odair Assad, Carlos Bonnell, Nikita Koshkin, Jonathan Leathwood, Paul Galbraith, Craig Ogden, Andrew York, Luis Zea,Montes-Kircher).
• Studied Carnatic music in India with Lalgudi Krishnan, Ganesh, V.V.Umashankar).
• First prize-winner in the 1998 South African National Guitar Competition, and in the 1998 Avril Kinsey Guitar Competition.
• Masters Degree by Dissertation from the University of Cape Town's College of Music (about Theordor Adorno and compositional theorists like Harry Partch, Jean-Philipp Rameau, Paul Hindemith, Ben Johnston and other things lost to the mists of time) studying with Ganeefa van der Schyff, Peter Klatzow, Dietrich Wagner and Hendrik Hofmeyr.
• Lecturer in classical guitar at the University of Cape Town between 1999 and 2003.
• After hearing Derek perform at his guitar course held in Brazil in 2006, Grammy Nominee Paul Galbraith described him as a "vital presence in the international guitar scene."
• Studied yoga with B.N.S.Iyengar in Madras, India and taught for a number of years.
• Learnt the Alexander technique (2003 - present) with various teachers.

Kyle Shepherd - (biog from www.kyleshepherd.co.za)
Shepherd, born in Cape Town, South Africa on 8 July 1987, is widely regarded as one of South Africa’s most accomplished young jazz pianists and composers. He started his musical journey at the age of five (5) on classical violin. However, at the age of fifteen (15) (which was also around the time his love for Jazz and improvised music was growing); Shepherd discovered that he had an innate, natural affinity for the piano which has since become his main instrument. This multi-instrumentalist also plays the saxophone and sings.

Shepherd has already performed at concerts and festivals in South Africa and abroad with some of South Africa’s greatest musicians, including the likes of Zim Ngqawana, Louis Moholo - Moholo, McCoy Mrubata, Hilton Schilder, Errol Dyers and Robbie Jansen.

Shepherd draws his musical influences from the traditional rhythms, melodies and harmonies of Cape Town, South Africa as well as Jazz music. Abdullah Ibrahim, Zim Ngqwana, Robbie Jansen, Keith Jarrett and Jason Moran all count amongst those who have inspired Shepherd musically, spiritually & creatively. “My music is a direct representation of my traditions and the lineage of artists that came before me, and I am merely a portrait of their mastery.”

Shepherd launched his Debut Album entitled "fineART" in January 2009. “fineART”, an 11-track album featuring all of Shepherd’s original compositions with the exception of a Cape Traditional song, “Die maan skyn so helder”, has been highly acclaimed by respected Jazz critics and discerning listeners alike. This has led to numerous concert performances across South Africa including the 2009 Cape Town International Jazz Festival with his fineART Quartet.

As part of the 2008 Cape Town International Jazz Festival Programme, Shepherd’s Quartet performed two of his original compositions in a virtual ‘Jazz Conversation’ with jazz students from the Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies in New York. This made a very favourable impression on acclaimed saxophonist Ron Blake who led the event on the Juilliard side, who commented that Shepherd’s eclectic compositions sounded “very fresh, very 21st-century.”

Shepherd’s previous National & International Festival appearances include:

• 2009 Cape Town International Jazz Festival (The Kyle Shepherd fineART Quartet) Cape Town, South Africa
• 2009 On Edge of Wrong Festival, (Kyle Shepherd Solo Piano), Cape Town South Africa
• 2008 Heritage Festival (with Louis Moholo – Moholo), Artscape, Cape Town, South Africa
• 2008 Genting International Jazz Festival (with Cape Jazz All Stars), Malaysia
• 2008 Festival Les Temps Chauds (with Cape Jazz All Stars), Bourg En Bresse, France
• 2008 Macufe Cultural Festival (with McCoy Mrubata), Bloemfontein
• 2008, Obs Festival (The Kyle Shepherd fineART Quartet) Cape Town, South Africa
• 2007 Cape Town Jazzathon (with Errol Dyers Band & Robbie Jansen Band), Cape Town, South Africa
• 2006 Cape Town Jazzathon (Kyle Shepherd’s Silent Messengers), Cape Town, South Africa