BENGAL TIGER, SHANGHAI DRAGON
Featuring musicians from the GRAND UNION ORCHESTRA
Musicians from the Grand Union Orchestra present one of their most colourful and inventive projects, bringing together internationally-known musicians from China and South Asia with great jazz soloists.
Gu zheng (Chinese harp) virtuoso Zhu Xiao Meng, tabla maestro Yousuf Ali Khan and the extraordinary Carnatic violinist Jyotsna Srikanth are joined by two of the UK’s most celebrated improvisers Shanti Paul Jayasinha (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Chris Biscoe (soprano/alto saxophones), with multi-instrumentalist Gerry Hunt, Andres Lafone on bass guitar and Paul Clarvis drums.
In Grand Union shows over the years, composer/director Tony Haynes (piano/trombone) has skilfully blended ancient Chinese classical show-pieces and the folk-songs of distant regions with the ragas, time-cycles and inflected vocal styles of India and Bangladesh, African and Latin rhythms, unexpected harmonic twists and plenty of improvisation to produce highly original music.
Bengal Tiger, Shanghai Dragon brings these strands together in imaginative new ways in the wonderfully intimate and atmospheric setting of the Vortex.
This event is part of The Isle is Full of Noises , a two-week programme in April that Grand Union is running throughout East London to highlight Britain’s rapidly changing demographic, and the huge range of music and musicians migration has contributed to our society. More details can be found by clicking the link, on Tony Haynes’s blog www.tonyhaynesmusic.wordpress.com or visiting the Grand Union website
www.grandunion.org.uk