Premik + Imran Khan + Shakir A. Khan

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

Premik (flute) is a composer, arranger, producer, and accomplished multi-instrumentalist who performs on various flutes; soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones; wind synthesizers, and lap steel guitar. He has worked with a wide range of artists, including Carlos Santana, Whitney Houston, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Ravi Shankar, Narada Michael Walden, Clarence Clemons, Ornette Coleman, Jackson Browne, Jean-Luc Ponty, Lonnie Liston-Smith, Scarlet Riveria, James Taylor, Sting, and Lady Gaga just to name a few. He is equally adept in pop, R&B, jazz, world, and experimental genres.

Imran Khan (tabla), a tabla artist and instructor for Kalavant Center for Music and Dance in New York, began his musical training at the age of four with his grandfather and guru Ustad Raheman Khan. For the last nine years he has also trained intensively under his uncle Ustad Kadar Khan. He has performed for All India Radio and in various music festivals accompanying many of India’s greatest vocalists and instrumentalists. Imran Khan has given lectures and demonstrations at New York University, Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, and New Jersey State University and has performed with leading musicians at Symphony Space and the Town Hall in New York City.

Shakir (sitar) came to the United States as a young boy and started to intersperse his music with Western music. He has done many intercultural concerts all over the United States and India. As a child Shakir received intense musical training from his father, Ayub Khan. He then started his sitar training under the tutelage of Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan and continued to study the Pandit Nikhil Banerjee style and Ustad Abdul Halim Jaffer style known as Jaffer Khani Baaj. Shakir has performed at New York University, Manhattan School of Music, and Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania.