Thursday Night Jazz at the JCAL: An Evening of Carnatic Music

This Thursday, June 14, marks the season finale of The Jazz Gallery's Thursday Night music series at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning in Queens. Over the past year, the Gallery has presented several emerging artists and bands at the JCAL, from Secret Mall, to Maria Grand, to Sam Harris.For our final show of the 2017-18 season, The Jazz Gallery is proud to present an evening of Carnatic music, featuring vocalist Roopa Mahadevan, violinist Anjna Swaminathan, and mridangam player Abhinav Seetharaman. All three artists have graced the Gallery stage for performances co-presented with Brooklyn Raga Massive. In a prior interview with Jazz Speaks, Mahadevan described the group's traditional Carnatic musical practices:

Carnatic musicians often don’t rehearse ahead of time, or make decisions collaboratively before they get on stage. Often the “main artist”—in this case it’s a vocal concert, so the vocalist becomes the main artist—will have a sense of what they want to do, but they may not necessarily tell the accompanists ahead of time. Because if you are a professional Carnatic artist, you’ve already spent years and years learning the technique and repertoire, so even if you don’t know a specific song, if you know the raga, or the scale, and the tala, or the rhythmic structure, you should be able to just go with it.

Before coming out to Queens to see the trio's set, check Mahadevan and Swaminathan performing alongside pianist Guy Mintus and percussionist Rohan Krishnamurthy in the video below.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my7XuNlyiPwThe Jazz Gallery presents an evening of Carnatic music at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning on Thursday, June 14, 2018. The group features Roopa Mahadevan on vocals, Anjna Swaminathan on violin, and Abhinav Seetharaman on mridangam. One set at 8 P.M. $10 general admission. Purchase tickets here.