Instruction & Outreach
I have taught and presented Hindustani music, since the late 1980s, beginning with work as a board member of The India Music Society, a non-profit presenting organization, in Albuquerque, NM.
I began an initiative called Sangeet in 2000 in Austin. The goal of this initiative is to raise awareness and appreciation in central Texas about the traditional performing arts in India through performance and instruction—including lessons, workshops, and residencies. Both the performance and educational activities include local artists like myself, as well as guest artists, including maestros from India. The activities of Sangeet (now called Sangeet Millennium) have been supported by the City of Austin Cultural Arts Division in 2000, 2001-02, and subsequently every year since 2004.
I gained much as a music instructor from my post-doctoral residency at the University of Alberta (2001-2002). During this time, I worked closely with Dr. Regula Qureshi in planning, coordinating, and teaching (sitar and voice) in the University of Alberta Indian Music Ensemble, which grew during my stay from 12 to 29. As a member of the Canadian Center for Ethnomusicology at U of A, I participated in a number of outreach projects, including two annual world music samplers showcasing students of the Indian and African drumming ensembles as well as non-mainstream musicians in the community, several benefit performances, frequent performances (both solo and group) around the community, and an exhibit/performance showcasing the U of A Library’s holdings of the Folkways collection of LP recordings. Concurrently, I was a member-at-large of the executive committee of the Edmonton Raga Mala Society, the local non-profit Indian performance presenting organization. In this capacity, I acted as liaison between Raga Mala and the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology, co-facilitating, on behalf of the Centre, lecture-demonstrations and workshops by Raga Mala’s guest Indian musicians open to the public.
During my 2003-04 stint as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, I taught the following courses: 1) Introduction to World Music; 2) Music of South Asia (an upper-division undergraduate course covering classical, devotional, and folk traditions); and 3) an Honors/graduate seminar entitled “Gender/Women and Music in South Asia: Mainstream, Marginality, and Difference” (reflecting my research foci). In addition, I taught individual and small group lessons in sitar, Hindustani voice, and basic Hindustani musicianship targeting both Pitt students and members of the local Indian community. As faculty, I also performed concerts on various occasions at the university, presented a special multimedia lecture-performance on Raga and Color, directed an ensemble in performance at the neighboring Allegheny College, gave talks in speakers’ series, presented in a workshop on teaching musics of Asia for K-12 teachers, and screened a prepublication version of one of my ethnographic films at the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Mellon University, and Columbia University.
In 2005 I was invited to participate in the “Music and Seduction” conference at the Tropen Museum, University of Amsterdam, where I gave an audiovisual presentation entitled “Stages and Seduction.” I spent the remainder of the year teaching private students and revising articles for publication.
In 2006, I served Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Music and Visiting Research Scholar in the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology, University of Alberta. My duties included directing the Indian Music Ensemble and collaborating with Professor Regula Qureshi on an interdisciplinary project entitled “Female Agency and Patrilineal Constraints: Situating North Indian Courtesans in the Twentieth Century.” In this project still in process, we focus on the relations of musical production to ask under what social and musical conditions North India’s courtesans were able to creatively transcend social and gender boundaries and why they nevertheless were excluded from participation in the bourgeois reform of classical music, despite the fact that they had been the most prominent bearers of that art. I have continued with this project throughout 2007. I co-wrote papers on related topics presented by Qureshi at the International Council for Traditional Music in Vienna and the Society for Ethnomusicology in Columbus, Ohio, in 2007. In 2006 I was also invited to present at the Kathak at the Crossroads conference in San Francisco, hosted by the Chhandan School of Kathak Dance.
In the spring of 2007 I conducted a two-week residency on the fundamentals of Hindustani music for the guitar and choir students at Johnston High School in east Austin. Following this, I collaborated with tabla player Lauren Chechhio and dancer Anuradha Naimpally to present a “Holi” Spring Festival of Colors at the Marbridge Foundation, a residential facility for cognitively impaired adults. In late summer I began a community Hindustani vocal class, taught weekly at Marigold-Gateway to India, an Indian handicrafts boutique in Austin. Together with my Sangeet Millennium Ensemble, we have presented several events showcasing both students and professionals, and have put on a vocal workshop conducted by the distinguished vocalist Vidushi Savita Devi.