Tabla player heads to Cape Town

Tabla player Zakir Hussain has composed soundtracks for several movies.

Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain will perform at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Saturday December 3.

He will be joined by bansuri (bamboo flute) player Rakesh Chaurasia.

Hussain is the son of the legendary tabla player Ustad Alla Rakha who himself formed a formidable duo with sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar for many decades. Hussain’s first Planet Drum album, released in 1991, went on to earn the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album, the first Grammy ever awarded in this category.

His album Global Drum Project won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album in 2009.

He has also composed soundtracks for several movies, including In Custody and The Mystic Masseur by Ismail Merchant, and has played tabla on the soundtracks of Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Bernardo Bertolucci’s Little Buddha, among others.

Hussain has recorded and performed widely with artists as diverse as George Harrison, YoYo Ma, Joe Henderson, Van Morrison, Airto Moreira, Pharoah Sanders, Billy Cobham, Mark Morris, Rennie Harris and the Kodo drummers.

Chaurasia’s Indian Classical inspired fusion group RAF performed at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival in 2014. Tickets are priced from R300. Book at Computicket.