The Kessinger Family Fund for Asian Performing Arts presents Music & Conversation with South Indian (Carnatic) music expert Umayalpuram Mali, performing on the South Indian Mridangam and Konakkol. This concert will be held in the Michael Jaharis Recital Hall and is free and open to the public.

In South Indian classical Carnatic music, rhythmic concepts are complex and deployed in infinitely creative ways.  Along with percussion instruments, there is a highly developed art of vocally reciting rhythms, known as konakkol.

Umayalpuram Mali is a master of the mridangam, a double-headed South Indian drum, and konakkol. He is a student of renowned South Indian percussionists Kumbakonam Rajappa Iyer and Umayalpuram Sivaraman.  Mali is a seasoned performer on the concert circuit in India, and has played concert tours in the USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Kenya, France, and Mauritius. He has held a Fulbright Fellowship and an artistic residency in the US, and has trained many students both in India and internationally.

In this Music and Conversation hour, Mali will explain the building blocks of South Indian rhythmic concepts through konakkol, demonstrate how they can be put together, and perform an extended solo improvisation on the mridangam. 

For more information: hc-concerts [at] haverford.edu