Sunday, April 23, 2023 @ 7:00pm – 9:00pm (EDT)
The Music Center at Strathmore, North Bethesda, MD, United States

"The world of music seems to have fewer and fewer borders these days. Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, and Zakir Hussain are three players who regularly cross the frontier." —NPR

If music is a universal language, then rhythm is arguably its vocabulary. This principle is on breathtaking display in The Melody of Rhythm, the 2009 genre-crossing album by Indian tabla legend and inveterate musical explorer Zakir Hussain, bluegrass-jazz-and-beyond banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, and classical-meets-folk double-bass wizard Edgar Meyer. As in their unforgettable 2018 Washington Performing Arts appearance, joined then as now by the dazzling Indian bansuri (bamboo flute) player Rakesh Chaurasia, these renowned and accomplished artists—each an accomplished improviser—combine forces at Strathmore this April to make music that revels in cultural convergence while leaving borders far behind.

About Zakir Hussain, tabla

The pre-eminent classical tabla virtuoso of our time, Zakir Hussain is appreciated both in the field of percussion and in the music world at large as an international phenomenon and one of the world’s most esteemed and influential musicians. The foremost disciple of his father, the legendary Ustad Allarakha, Zakir was a child prodigy who began his professional career at the age of twelve, accompanying India’s greatest classical musicians and dancers and touring internationally with great success by the age of eighteen. His brilliant accompaniment, solo performance and genre-defying collaborations, including his pioneering work to develop a dialogue between North and South Indian musicians, have elevated the status of his instrument both in India and globally, bringing the tabla into a new dimension of renown and appreciation.

Widely considered a chief architect of the contemporary world music movement, Zakir's contribution has been unique, with many historic and groundbreaking collaborations, including Shakti, Remember Shakti, Masters of Percussion, Planet Drum and Global Drum Project with Mickey Hart, Tabla Beat Science, Sangam with Charles Lloyd and Eric Harland, CrossCurrents with Dave Holland and Chris Potter, in trio with Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer, and, most recently, with Herbie Hancock.

http://www.zakirhussain.com

The Music Center at Strathmore

5301 Tuckerman Ln
North Bethesda, MD 20852
United States

https://www.strathmore.org/our-spaces/the-music-center/