GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Simon's Rock announced the Hindustani Classical Music Concert, featuring a performance by mother and son duet, Veena Chandra, sitarist and vocalist, and Devesh Chandra, tabla. 

 

The concert will be held on Sunday, March 13 at 7:00 p.m. at the McConnell Theater at the Daniel Arts Center.

 

The concert will be free and open to the public, who must show vaccination certificates upon entry and attend fully masked. The Daniel Arts Center staff is ensuring that audience members will be safely seated in socially distanced groups. Reservations should be made on this webpage. 

 

Veena Chandra is an internationally renowned sitarist, composer, teacher, and choreographer. She is the founder and director of the Dance and Music School of India in Latham, NY where she teaches Indian classical music. She has been a faculty member at Skidmore College since 1990, teaching sitar in the Music Department. Since 2014, she is also the Artist Associate in Sitar at Williams College. 

 

In 2019, she was awarded the NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship in music & sound. She is a recent recipient of numerous grants: New York State Folk Art Grant 2003, Artists Decentralization Grant, SOS grants, Meet the Composer grants, Albany League of Arts (2002), New Music USA (2017, 2020), NYFA Keep NYS Creating Project (2020). She has received several years of Community Arts Grants & Arts in Education grants (2000-2020) through The Arts Center of the Capital Region and NYSCA. In 2018, Veena received the SRIJAN Music Excellence Award "in recognition of outstanding contribution in the field of Indian Classical Music."

 

Devesh Chandra has been learning the tabla since the age of 3. He has learned Northern Indian Classical Music by accompanying his mother, Veena Chandra. In addition to tabla solos and playing Indian classical music, he has collaborated and worked with musicians across a broad range of musical genres, from Western Folk and Western Classical to Flamenco and Jazz as well as Latin Music. Devesh has collaborated with notables such as Sumitra Guha, Anup Jalota, Susie Ibarra, Tarun Bhattacharya, Brian Mellick, and Alex Torres. He has also composed music for modern dance, most notably his highly acclaimed commission "House of Fables" for the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company. He has performed at a wide array of music festivals in both the US and abroad including Wanderlust, The NYS Fair, and Friendly Gathering.

 

Devesh regularly visits schools and colleges and teaches students of all ages about Indian classical music and tabla. Devesh teaches tabla as an Artist Associate at Williams College. Devesh and Veena Chandra conduct a yearly community arts project, which exposes the public at large to Indian classical music. Together, they run The Dance & Music School of India, which Veena Chandra founded over 30 years ago.