Music by Vincent Kennedy. Commissioned by RTÉ. World premiere performance by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, David Brophy conducting. This from a live broadcast on RTÉ Lyric FM from the National Concert Hall Dublin, Ireland.

Dublin - Overture To My City by Vincent Kennedy

Preview of my solo album accompanied by Shahbaz Hussain, the great tabla virtuoso.


Raag Yaman Vilambit, Mohamed Assani (Sitar), Shahbaz Hussain (Tabla).

shahbaz hussain tabla solo. teental march 2011.

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then shall you begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”
–Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

I’ve always thought of jazz as being the language of imagination and freedom— a conversational, fluid melding of ideas. This piece features a jazz trio (tenor saxophone, trombone, and double bass), set against the backdrop of an orchestra. The first movement of Blueprint opens with some precise, dancing Balkan rhythms, which set the tone and reveal the architecture of the work. The second movement begins as a slow meditation (taking its inspiration from the evocative quote by poet Kahlil Gibran, above), and builds toward a climax—“melting into the sun”—the idea of the release of the spirit from the body. The third movement mirrors the first movement in its exuberant rhythmic drive, and also draws a bit of inspiration for its raw melodic language from the delta blues. This was an incredibly fun piece to write, and I’d like to acknowledge with thanks the trio of musicians involved in the premiere: Brent Mah (tenor saxophone), Jim Hopson (trombone), and Graham Clark (double bass).

Blueprint received its premiere with the West Coast Symphony Orchestra, with Bujar Llapaj- conductor, on June 10th, 2016, at Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Sheet music (and a complete archival recording of the piece) are available through the Canadian Music Centre:

https://cmccanada.org/shop/70958/

Live at Christ Church Cathedra

Blueprint (Concerto for Jazz Trio & Orchestra)

This is an excerpt from a very special performance in 1988 in Varanasi, India at the Sankat Mochan Temple.  Guruji plays the ari kaida and rela at lightning fast speeds, dazzling the crowd, after several years of living in the U.S. and U.K.
The full performance was released by the Pandit Ram Sahai Foundation in 2010 as the CD entitled: "Emperor of Tabla."    Contact www.sahai.org for future information about CD purchase and downloads of the entire disk.

Ari kaida and rela-Emperor of Tabla CD-Sankat Mochan Temple-1988

Composers: Mohamed Assani & John Oliver
Soloists: Mohamed Assani (sitar), Shahbaz Hussain (tabla)
with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Bramwell Tovey
Sunday November 5, 2017 @ Vancouver's Orpheum Theatre

'Pressed For Time' brings myself as a composer/sitarist working in the genre of Hindustani Classical music, alongside John Oliver – one of Canada’s leading composers of music for orchestras, chamber ensembles and electroacoustic media. Together we have created a composition of approximately 22 minutes in length that integrates each of our strengths in Indian Classical music (Hindustani tradition) and Western contemporary classical music. The work takes the form of a sitar concerto in one movement. The final piece, called Pressed for Time, draws on as well as departs from the conventions of Hindustani classical music (the music of Northern India and Pakistan) and Western contemporary orchestral music, Pushing past the idea of ‘setting’ the sitar in either a traditional or avant-garde context, we have tried to merge the best of both, developing the raga in a non-linear way, creating unexpected changes and new ideas that transform the musical materials and form. This new synthetic work plays with the listener’s expectations, whichever of these traditions they prefer or know best.

Pressed For Time*- A Concerto For Sitar & Orchestra

Live at Trafo house of contemporary arts, Budapest, Hungary. 
Tabla: Shri Bhupinder Chaggar

Vinayak Chittar - Live at Trafo - Raga Marwa Madhyalaya and Drut Gats.wav

Mohamed Assani is an award-winning sitar player and composer, known for being a proactive ambassador for his rich musical tradition. He has brought the sitar to new audiences through innovative, genre-bending collaborations. According to the Georgia Straight, "Assani is both deeply rooted in the artistic traditions of South Asia and a one-of-a-kind innovator." Mohamed is based in Vancouver, Canada.

Pressed For Time*- A Concerto For Sitar & Orchestra

Mohamed Assani

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