Cal Performances presents Vijay Iyer & Friends: Confluence featuring Zakir Hussain, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Aruna Sairam
Zellerbach Hall Auditorium
U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA 94305 USA
2:00 PM, Saturday, June 17, 2017
Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2017 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2017 event list! ☸ On to the next event!
[2:07 PM lights down, applause at band entrance; Vijay speaks a bit]
An excellent show! Eeeeee set the standard: capturing my attention immediately, and transporting me to some far away plane of auditory existence. City of Sand was slow and exquisitely meditative: a nice contrast to the more frenetic opener. Aruna Sairam introduced the following tune, but I didn't quite catch the name, Rag ?Andolan is my best guess; I also wrote that it uses only five notes. Snap was another fast tune, quite fun to listen to. Abundance was probably the slowest piece of the set – and also my favorite.
In retrospect, I should have noted the composers for each piece, as Vijay identified them with each introduction; for the moment, I recall only that Eeeeee was written by Mahanthappa. Hmmn. Looks like I need to do additional research!
Anyways, I was very happy when the musicians walked back onstage for an encore, and if I understood Sairam correctly, the final composition, Kalinga Nartana Tillana, was written in the 18th Century to commemorate Lord Krishna's encounter with Kaliya, a five-headed river cobra, at Vrindavan. Wikipedia has a helpful page about the backstory, and Nikhil has posted a truly excellent blog article about the work.
Mark Macnamara posted a preview interview with Vijay at SFCV.
Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2017 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2017 event list! ☸ On to the next event!