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Jansen Bennett + J. S. Onca

Spiral Music

Wednesday, August 24, 2016
6:00 PM–9:00 PM

Spiral Music presents acoustic music every Wednesday evening at the base of the Museum’s spiral staircase. Artists who specialize in music from the Himalayas and South Asia are invited to forge a connection between their music and the art in the galleries.


About the Musicians

J. S. Onca is a New York City-based multi-instrumentalist writing and performing music that blends Indian and African elements with contemporary Western influences. Coming from a jazz background, he was attracted to Indian classical music as a way to expand into deeper explorations of modal music and non-Western intonation systems. After looking for a fretless instrument that suited him, he found a video of Ali Akbar Khan playing sarod and knew immediately what direction he would move in. Though generally performing and recording in an amplified context, he will be performing a fully acoustic set on the sarod and fretless classical guitar.

Jansen Bennett is a New York musician proficient in many styles of singing and percussion. He studied tabla under Swapan Chaudhuri, plays the Persian santoor and Albanian chifteli, and sings Arabic, Indian, and Turkish songs. He has performed in an Indian classical context with sitarist Rajib Karmarkar and in a fusion context with harpist Park Stickney. His style is pure creative freedom, shifting through many forms in a single performance.

Free

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