Nilan Chaudhuri is a Bay Area based percussionist, educator, and performer. Initiated into the tradition of Indian Classical Music at the age of five by his father, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Nilan has been performing as a tabla soloist and accompanist for nearly two decades. Prior to beginning his formal training with his father in 2000, Nilan studied tabla with Brad Van Cleve, Tim Witter, and Uttam Chakraborty, all of whom are senior disciples of his father. Drawing inspiration from his father’s innovative approach to classical tabla solo, Nilan was determined from a young age to be a soloist. He presented his first public tabla recital at the age of eleven, at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, in the presence of Maestro Ali Akbar Khansahib. It was during these formative years that Nilan was introduced to the world of Tabla accompaniment by Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, providing rhythmic support for his vocal and instrumental classes at the college. As a teenager, Nilan was inspired by the Jazz-fusion Band ‘Oregon’ a group spearheaded by his cousin, multi-percussionist, Collin Walcott. The band’s music influenced Nilan to broaden his rhythmic studies, and in 2003, he began learning the drum set with Sly Randolph, of Richmond, California. Today, Nilan experiments regularly with bridging the two styles of Indian and American drumming, and plays a hybrid kit that fuses together the tabla and drum set, and incorporates electronic percussion instruments like the Roland HandSonic, and Ableton Push. Since 2007, Nilan has had the incredible opportunity to attend tabla-centric rhythm workshops conducted by Ustad Zakir Hussain. He has also attended South Indian percussion classes taught by ghatam Vidwan Subhash Chandran, kanjira Vidwan Ganesh Kumar, and Jim Santi Owen. Since his debut performance in concert with his father in Queens, NY, in 2005, Nilan has had the privilege of sharing the stage with some of Hindustani Classical Music’s most celebrated artists, like Ustad Amjad Ali Khansahib, Ustad Shujaat Khan, Pt. Ramesh Misra, Pt. Debashish Bhattacharya, and Alam Khan, at venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Fillmore, The Monterey Pop Festival, The Richmond Folk Festival, Fox Theater, The San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, and The Kennedy Center. His genre-bending collaborations include performances, projects, and recordings with the likes of conductor Michael Morgan and the Fremont Symphony, pop star, Beck, sitarist, Arjun Verma, sarodist, Manik Khan, violinist Raaginder Singh Momi, The Toronto Tabla Ensemble, George Brooks, Dennis Chambers, Miles Schon, and DJ Teeko. In addition to maintaining a rigorous performing schedule, Nilan teaches Tabla throughout the Bay Area as a faculty member at the Ali Akbar College of Music, in San Rafael, and as the Director of Percussion at Chitresh Das Institute, in San Mateo. He also serves as an archivist at the Ali Akbar College of Music, where the construction of a musical archive spanning 40 years of his Father’s work, is underway. It’s his lifelong mission to contribute to the preservation and enrichment of Indian Classical percussion.

Malini Srinivasan is a third-generation Bharatha Natyam artist and the disciple of world-renowned artist Sri C.V. Chandrasekhar. She began learning Bharatanatyam at a young age with her mother Radha Srinivasan and grandmother Komalavalli Mani. She started studying the Kalakshetra style in 2000 with Smt. Savitri Jagganath Rao and performed her Arangetram (debut) under the guidance of Meena Raman. Malini grew up in Maryland, and lived in Chennai from 1999-2004 to pursue her study of dance and its allied art forms such as Nattuvangam, Carnatic vocal music, Kalaripayattu, Yoga, Sanskrit and Tamil. A critically-acclaimed soloist, Malini has presented solo Bharatanatyam to audiences in the U.S., India and Europe. She has also performed with groups including the Padmini Chettur Group, Ragamala, Rajika Puri and Dancers, Thresh, and Kala Nivedanam. Malini has choreographed solo and group Bharatanatyam pieces, including Being Becoming, Ode to Love’s Arrows, Tejas-Luminous, and Ask Hafiz. She was awarded the Dance in Queens Residency (2009) the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Residency (2010), and the Queens Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant (2010, 2012, 2014, 2018) and a New Music USA Grant (2016). Based in Queens, NY, Malini is committed to spreading a deep understanding of Indian classical traditions through teaching. She founded the Gitanjali Dance School in 2009. She has been a visiting artist/lecturer at Princeton University, Wellesley College, UNC Asheville, Brooklyn Friends and Colgate University. From 2006-2016, she served as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Asian & Asian-American Studies Department at SUNY Stony Brook. She is the School Programs Manager and a Teaching Artist with City Lore.

Arun Ramamurthy is a violinist, composer and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Rooted in South Indian classical Carnatic music, Arun is a versatile musician, performing internationally in both traditional Carnatic and Hindustani settings, as well as blurring genres with his own innovative projects like the acclaimed Arun Ramamurthy Trio. Arun studied under the celebrated violinist brothers, Sri Mysore Nagaraj & Dr. Mysore Manjunath, the distinguished violinist Sri. Ananthakrishnan as well as many early years with western classical violinist Jim Mate. He has shared the stage with luminaries like Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna, Sudha Ragunathan, Reggie Workman, Kenny Werner, Jamey Haddad, Flute Shashank, Amir ElSaffar, Hamid Drake, Mashkoor Ali Khan, Adam Rudolph, Hamid Al-Saadi, Subhankar Banerjee, Martha Redbone, Awa Sangho amongst others. He has performed and recorded with a wide range of musical genres including Jazz, Arabic Maqam, Afro-Cuban, Malian, American folk, Western classical, and other creative and improvisational styles. Arun's music has brought him prestigious stages like Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Celebrate Brooklyn and many more. He leads the Arun Ramamurthy Trio, an ensemble that brings a fresh approach to Carnatic classical repertoire and features Arun's original composition work. Praised by All About Jazz as “a beautiful, exotic, ear-opening listening experience" ART is about to record their 2nd studio album in December 2022, featuring newly commissioned music. He also co-leads a violin duo project with wife and violinist Trina Basu, reimagining string chamber music through the lens of Indian classical raga. The duo released their debut studio album “Nakshatra” in January 2022. Other notable projects Arun is involved with include Raga Maqam (ensemble with Amir ElSaffar bridging the worlds of Raga and Maqam) and Ragmala Go: Organic Orchestra & BRM (large ensemble led by percussionist / composer Adam Rudolph). As a composer, Arun has created new works for his Trio (ART) and duo project with Trina Basu, scores for theatrical productions such as Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink, composition for Indian classical dance, and for the pioneering musician's collective Brooklyn Raga Massive. Arun was recently commissioned by Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works grant to create music for his ensemble, Arun Ramamurthy Trio. Arun was also commissioned through New Music USA to compose original work for Malini Srinivasan's 'Appeasing Radhika', an ambitious project investigating Devadasi lives in Indian Classical performing arts. Arun is a founder and co-Artistic Director of Brooklyn Raga Massive, a progressive genre-bending collective of musicians rooted-in and inspired-by the classical music of India. He created and produced the innovative series Carnatic Sundays at the iconic West Village haunt, Cornelia Street Cafe. Throughout his career, Arun has curated and performed in hundreds of concerts bringing together music from all over the world. Arun also is a dedicated educator, teaching Carnatic music privately to children and adult students, professional string players and instrumentalists from various genres. He conducts workshops and has held teaching-artist residencies working with student ensembles at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College’s Jazz & Big Band program, NYU, Yale University, Sarah Lawrence University, and many others.

Dr. Rohan Krishnamurthy, as an Indian-American percussionist, composer, and educator, is one of the leading voices of Indian classical and cross-genre music in the South Asian diaspora. Acclaimed a "musical ambassador" by The Times of India, he received mridangam training from the legendary maestro, Sri. Guruvayur Dorai. Distinguished as a soloist, composer, and collaborator, Rohan performed with legendary Indian classical musicians and Grammy Award-winning global artists. Rohan leads The Alaya Project, an Indo-jazz-funk collective featuring celebrated saxophonist Prasant Radhakrishnan and keyboardist Colin Hogan. The group's recently released debut album has been praised by Jazziz Magazine, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, and more. Rohan holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the Eastman School of Music and directs the RohanRhythm Percussion Studio with students from across the globe. Rohan is the recipient of international awards and grants including commissions from the San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Foundation, and Goethe Institute (Germany). He has taught at renowned institutions and his patented RohanRhythm drum tuning system is available worldwide.

Taniya Panda is a Carnatic vocalist who accompanies for Bharatha Natyam arangetrams and teaches young children, while she also performs dance duets with her husband, Puneet. A completely self-made artist, Taniya began her training in the Carnatic style of Indian classical music in Toronto, Canada, from Smt. Vijayalakshmi Seenivasagam. In her early teens she moved to Chennai to take more intensive training from the acclaimed Veena Vidushi Smt. Padmavathy Ananthagopalan. Taniya is also an accomplished Bharatha Natyam dancer having undergone training with Guru A.Lakshmanaswamy. She has performed solo, duet and group productions in India, Canada and the US both as a dancer and supporting vocalist. She is currently continuing her vocal training with Kyvalya Chilla (Secunderabad). She is based in Marietta, Georgia, where she and her husband have also begun to independently present accomplished artists. Taniya is a wonderful example of using your expertise in these art forms to have a range of reach while raising a family.