World drummers making rythms with Valley’s Shorley

BY WENDY ELLIOTT

Kings County Register

Wolfville musician and teacher Ken Shorley wants a good crowd out to celebrate his fifth annual drum night.

“This year, we are pleased to announce two very special guests from Toronto: world-renowned South Indian mrdangam player Tricy Sankaran and his daughter, autorickshaw vocalist Suba Sankaran.”

As host, Shorley will also perform a short opening set.

The concert is set for April 11 at 8 p.m. in the Al Whittle Theatre in Wolfville.

Trichy Sankaran is a world-renowned percussion virtuoso, Indian music scholar and composer. In his more than 50 years of concert experience in Karnatak music, Shorley says, he has accompanied all top ranked artists of India. He has performed with gamelan, jazz, electronic, African music ensembles and World Drums. Sankaran is founding director of Indian Music Studies at York University in Toronto, where he has been teaching since 1971.

Suba Sankaran’s musical career began at an early age, studying South Indian classical music with her father. She graduated from York University in 1997, where she studied jazz, and completed her Master of Arts degree in ethnomusicology in 2002. She regularly performs with world music ensembles autorickshaw and Trichy’s Trio.

Shorley has a new recording out, Sekar Alit: New Works for Gamelan.

“All the music on this new recording was played on a gamelan, which is a set of Indonesian bronze instruments (gongs, metallophones, gong-chimes) and drums.”

Traditionally, he says, this ensemble would be played by a group of individuals.

“However, in this instance, I have played all the parts myself by multitracking the instruments, one by one.

All tracks were recorded in November on the instruments of Gamelan Kamala Shanti, a small central Javanese pelog gamelan, forged in the workshop of Pak Tentrem in the city of Solo, Java.