IMOO #110: Shawn Mativetsky and Payton MacDonald

Sunday, November 30: IMOO #110 – Shawn Mativetsky and Payton MacDonald
*SPECIAL LOCATION: Black Squirrel Books – 1073 Bank St in Old Ottawa South*
Same time as always (7-9pm)

• Shawn Mativetsky – tabla
• Payton MacDonald – voice

Exponent of the Benares gharana, and disciple of the legendary Pandit Sharda Sahai, Shawn Mativetsky is a highly sought-after tabla performer and educator. He is active in the promotion of the tabla and North Indian classical music through lectures, workshops, and performances across Canada and internationally. Based in Montreal, Shawn teaches tabla and percussion at McGill University. His solo CD, Payton MacDonald: Works for Tabla, was released in 2007, and Cycles, his new CD of Canadian compositions for tabla, was released in the fall of 2011.

As a practitioner of Indian classical music, Shawn regularly gives solo tabla performances, as well as accompanying kathak dance, voice, bansuri, sarod, santoor, sarangi, and sitar artists. He performs often with Duo Samskaraand Sitaria. Since 2003, Shawn has been affiliated with the Pandit Ram Sahai Foundation (UK/India), and in the summers of 2006 and 2008, hosted tabla maestro Pandit Sharda Sahai’s annual summer tabla workshop. Since 2011, Shawn has been hosting his own annual summer tabla workshop at McGill University. In recent years, he has worked closely with kathak dancer Sudeshna Maulik for her performances of Crossroads, Mehfil, Soul of Ganges, and Hands and Feet.

Shawn has performed numerous solo recitals, spanning Canada, the United States, the UK, and India and has been featured in series such as the Windsor Canadian Music Festival, Pontio / Music @ Bangor, New Music in New Spaces, Groundswell, Festival Montréal Baroque, Jusqu’aux Oreilles, Evolutions, Voyages: Montréal-New York, Festival International du Domaine Forget, New Works Calgary, Music Toronto, and the Percussive Arts Society International Convention. As an ensemble musician, Shawn Mativetsky performs regularly with violinist Parmela Attariwala’s cross-cultural Attar Project, Indo-fusion group Ragleela, Indian-folk group Galitcha, and the improv trio Of Sound, Mind and Body, with Tim Brady and Helmut Lipsky. A versatile studio musician, Shawn has appeared on albums by Yann Perreau, Elephant Stone, Suzie Leblanc, Ramachandra Borcar, and Daniel Lavoie. Regular performances with Galitcha have led to concerts across Canada and the US, as well as tours to France and Tunisia, the chance to play with guest musicians such as Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Salil Bhatt, Harry Manx, and Yves Lambert, as well as a performance for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, during their visit to Canada.‎

www.shawnmativetsky.com

Payton MacDonald (b. 1974, Idaho Falls, Idaho) is a composer, improviser, percussionist, singer, and educator. He has created a unique body of work that draws upon his extensive experience with East Indian tabla drumming and Dhrupad singing, Jazz, European classical music, and the American experimental tradition. He works across multiple musical genres, often at the same time. Several recordings of MacDonald’s music exist, including the critically acclaimed Payton MacDonald: Works for Tabla on the ATMA label.

The New York Times described him as an “energetic soloist.” The Los Angeles Times described him as an “. . . inventive, stylistically omnivorous composer and gifted performer . . .” His music has also been described as “hypnotically beautiful” (The New York Times and “. . . engaging and utterly beautiful.” (Sequenza 21) MacDonald has been a featured performer of his own music on festivals in Montreal (Voyages) and Minneapolis (Electric Eyes).

As a composer numerous ensembles have performed his music around the world, including Alarm Will Sound, Los Angeles Philharmonic, JACK Quartet, So Percussion, To Hit Duo, Young Voices of Colorado, Quintet Mont Royal, Classical Jam, guitarists Mak Grgic and Eliot Fisk, and tabla soloist Shawn Mativetsky. He has received grants and awards from Fulbright Foundation, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, American Music Center, American Institute of Indian Studies, as well as fellowships from Yaddo and Ragdale. He has also composed music for the Silken Dance Company.

As an improviser MacDonald tours as a marimba soloist with Super Marimba. With Super Marimba MacDonald performs his own music using looping machines and delay pedals. He also performs with other collaborators, including Elliott Sharp, Aakash Mittal, Peter Evans, Tim Feeney, Todd Sickafoose, Theo Metz, and many others. MacDonald recently performed with the Aakash Mittal Quintet on the Kolkata Jazz Festival.

As a classical percussion performer he is a founding member of Alarm Will Sound, a new-music chamber orchestra. Alarm Will Sound is currently regarded as one of the foremost new music ensembles in the country and they have made five recordings, on the Nonesuch and Cantaloupe labels. The New York Times wrote that they are “the future of classical music.” Alarm Will Sound has performed in the finest concert halls all over the world. MacDonald has commissioned many works from other composers, including Charles Wuorinen, Robert Morris, Caleb Burhans, Don Freund, Peter Jarvis, Elliott Sharp, David Saperstein, Michael Udow, and Stuart Saunders Smith. From 1994-2004 MacDonald performed with Verederos, a flute and percussion duo. Verederos recorded two CDs under the Equilibrium label. He has also appeared as a soloist in England and Croatia, performed with Present Music and the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, toured Japan with Keiko Abe and the Galaxy percussion group, and performed and recorded with acclaimed singer/songwriter Noe Venable.

MacDonald is also a singer and is currently studying Dhrupad vocal with the famous Gundecha Brothers. In 2012 MacDonald made his singing debut with Alarm Will Sound, singing John Cage’s “Raga Music” at the River to River festival in New York City, the Musikgebouw in Holland, and the Cork Opera House in Cork, Ireland. In spring 2013 he was awarded a Senior Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship to spend the 2013-2014 academic year in India continuing his vocal studies with the Gundecha Brothers. He has performed many times as a classical Dhrupad singer, including his official debut at Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, M.P., India. His performance was covered by many major news outlets, including The Hitaveda, who wrote “Dr. Payton MacDonald with his melodious voice spread the beauty of Dhrupad, its subtle finer points and the way he sang seemed to be spiritualistic. His solo Dhrupad performance was encouraging and not less than any young Indian Dhrupad singer.”

www.paytonmacdonald.com