La Monte Young, voice
Marian Zazeela, voice
Jung Hee Choi, voice
Rose Okada, sarangi
Tzara, tabla

The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath from the Just Dreams CD

MELA Foundation Dream House
275 Church Street, 3rd Floor,
New York, NY 10013
(Between Franklin & White Streets in Tribeca)

Thursday, June 12, 9 pm

Admission $24. MELA Members, Seniors, Student ID, $18.
Limited seating. Advance reservations recommended.

A Concert of Evening Ragas in the contemporary Kirana Style of North Indian Classical Music will be performed by La&nbspMonte Young and Marian Zazeela with their raga ensemble Just Alap, in a memorial tribute to Pandit Pran Nath on Thursday, June 12, at 9 pm in the MELA Foundation Dream House light environment, 275 Church Street, 3rd Floor.

With the Just Alap ensemble, La&nbspMonte Young applies his own compositional approach to traditional raga performance, form and technique: a pranam (bow) of gratitude in reciprocation for the influence on his music since the mid-fifties, of the unique, slow, unmetered timeless alapand one of the most ancient and evolved vocal traditions extant today. Featuring extended alap sections and sustained vocal drones in just intonation over tamburas, Young and Zazeela premiered this ensemble on August 22, 2002 at a memorial concert in honor of sarangi master Ustad Hafizullah Khan Sahib, the Khalifa of the Kirana Gharana and son of Pandit Pran Nath’s teacher, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan Sahib. Pandit Pran Nath has said, "Alap is the essence of Raga. When the drut [faster tempo] begins, the Raga is finished."

La&nbspMonte Young and Marian Zazeela will be accompanied by Jung Hee Choi, voice, Rose Okada, sarangi, Tzara Vierck, tabla, and The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath from the Just Dreams CD, JD001. The program will include compositions by Pandit Pran Nath in Raga Yaman Kalyan, and also by Young in Raga Sindh Bhairavi.

La&nbspMonte Young and Marian Zazeela helped bring renowned master vocalist Pandit Pran Nath to the U.S. and became his first Western disciples, studying with him for twenty-six years in the traditional manner of living with the guru. Young and Zazeela have taught the Kirana style and performed with Pandit Pran since 1970 in hundreds of concerts in India, Iran, Europe and the United States. In June 2002, Young was conferred the title of Khan Sahib by Khalifa Hafizullah Khan Sahib.

Pandit Pran Nath, who passed away on June 13, 1996, virtually introduced the vocal tradition of North Indian classical music to the West in 1970. His 1971 morning performance at Town Hall, New York City, was the first concert of morning ragas to be presented in the U.S. Subsequently, he introduced and elaborated to Western audiences the concept of performing ragas at the proper time of day by scheduling entire series of concerts at special hours. Many students and professional musicians came to him in America to learn about the vast system of raga and to improve their musicianship. He performed frequently in New York City and in 1972, established his own school under the direction of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, the Kirana Center for Indian Classical Music, now a project of MELA Foundation. In Fall 1993, Pran Nath inaugurated the MELA Foundation Dream House with three Raga Cycle concerts and continued to perform here annually during his lifetime.

Pran Nath's majestic expositions of the slow alap sections of ragas combined with his emphasis on perfect intonation and the clear evocation of mood had a profound impact on Western contemporary composers and performers. In addition to Young and Zazeela, minimalist music composer Terry Riley became one of his first American disciples. Fourth-world trumpeter Jon Hassell, jazz all-stars Don Cherry and Lee Konitz, composers Jon Gibson, Yoshimasa Wada, Rhys Chatham, Michael Harrison and Allaudin Mathieu, Sufi Pir Shabda Kahn, mathematician and composer Christer Hennix, concept artist and violinist Henry Flynt, dancer Simone Forti, and many others took advantage of the opportunity to study with the master.

MELA's programs are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.