Issa Noor, Pavan Kalasikam, and Bonnie Schmader create a musical journey, combining traditional Indian Tabla, Turkish Baglama, Flute, Handpans, and Arabic Percussion. In this grand exploration we will be transversing Indian Raga, Arabic Maqam, and territory yet untraveled... join us!

Pavan Kalasikam is originally from Hyderabad, India. Under the guidance of his mother, Smt. Jayasri Kalasikam, a lifetime musician, Pavan began performing on stage at the age of five and later continued his training with Sri Shesha Chelapati and Ustad Najmuddin Qadri, noted tablists in Hyderabad. Pavan has taught numerous students in India and worked professionally with musicians and composers from various world music genres. Since moving to the United States, Pavan continues to teach and perform with artists representing Indian classical, ghazal, flamenco, jazz and Middle Eastern music. Most recently he studied with Sarod Maestro Amjad Ali Khan. Pavan lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Bonnie Schmader, flutist, harpist, educator, composer and therapeutic musician, graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from Arizona State University. She has made performing and teaching a lifelong pursuit, performing jazz, classical, and world music world-wide and leading music, wellness, and creativity workshops for children and adults locally and abroad. Bonnie is a certified clinical musician, who has provided therapeutic music services at Lovelace Women’s Hospital, UNMH, and elsewhere. She has combined music and art, working as an environment educator, and is one of only fifty people chosen world-wide to travel to the Netherlands in 2017 to participate in Musicians Without Borders— a global music program that uses community music-making for reconciliation, healing, and social change. Currently Bonnie is the director of the La Mesa Arts Academy, which offers free art, music and dance classes for under-served children and families in Albuquerque’s International District.

Issa Noor, a native of New Mexico who was originally self-taught, is a highly skilled and internationally recognized specialist in Middle Eastern, Arabic, and North African percussion. He has performed nationally and internationally at venues as noteworthy as the Kennedy Center and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Issa is a natural teacher who has instructed and inspired all levels of drummers, teaching workshops locally and as a guest instructor at Yale and the Chicago School of Music, and is featured as a guest teacher at the Kirtan Leader Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He has also recorded with artists including Grammy winning oud virtuoso Rahim Al-Haj, (as Issa Malluf), guitarist Peter Buck of R.E.M., and Eastern European, Balkan, and Turkish influenced 'A Hawk and a Hacksaw' among many more. Though his primary genre is Arabic/Middle Eastern percussion, Issa is knowledgeable in an array of percussion styles from around the world, is frequently sought after due to the clarity, precision and complexity/simplicity of his drum work and rhythms, and is ever expanding into new territory and understandings through both study and travel.

Listen to Banu Noor play "Cosmic Traveller"

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Schedule Details

Saturday, July 13, 2019

Doors open @ 7:30 PM

Price Options

$20 (includes tax)

Advance registration recommended.

* Ticket price includes 7.5% NM gross receipts tax and 2.9% PayPal transaction fee.