ESO to feature renowned drummer

The Elgin Symphony Orchestra will bring the music of the Academy Award-winning film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" to the stage this weekend.

The concerts will include movements from the "Crouching Tiger" Concerto by composer Tan Dun. This beautiful work will feature Indian-born, multiethnic percussionist Kalyan Pathak performing on the tar, darbouka and framedrums, percussion instruments seldom found in orchestral literature but masterfully woven into composer Tan Dun's Oscar-winning score. These instruments are sure to evoke strong images of exotic landscapes and dramatic scenes.

Performances will take place at 8 p.m. Friday at the Prairie Center for the Arts in Schaumburg and at 8 p.m. Saturday and 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the Hemmens Theatre, 45 Symphony Way in downtown Elgin.

Individual tickets start at $25 and are available through the ESO box office at (847) 888-4000 and online through www.ElginSymphony.org.

Box office hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday. ESO Patron Services Staff are also available 90 minutes before each concert in the box office at Hemmens Theatre. Discount sales to groups of 10 or more may be purchased by contacting the ESO's Group Sales Manager at (847) 888-0404.

Born in Ahmedabad, India, Kalyan Pathak received formal training in Classical North Indian Tabla from age 9 to 15. An apprenticeship with prominent drummer and composer Ranjit Barot of India, brought Kalyan to Bombay during the late 1980s. While devoting himself to western drums, Kalyan concurrently did regular session work with the prestigious the Lakshmikant Pyarelal Orchestra and Louis Banks Band, and toured all over India playing with jazz and rock bands.

Kalyan came to Chicago in the early 1990s on a full scholarship to Roosevelt University, and in addition to receiving a music degree in jazz studies with honors, he went on to study African, Afro-Cuban, Latin and Middle Eastern genres of percussion from various masters in the United States.

Since moving to the U.S., Kalyan has become one of the busiest tabla virtuoso and multiethnic percussionists in the country, and has performed, collaborated and toured with many international level artists from jazz, classical and jamband music scenes, such as Yo-Yo Ma and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fareed Haque Group, Howard Levy, Willy Schwarz, Pacifica String Quartet, Theodore Bikel, Alberto Mizrahi, Steve Kimock and many others.

Recent projects include recordings with his own group "Jazz Mata"; composing and performing a jazz big-band composition for Holiday Music of Silk Road for the Midwest Young Artists and Chicago Silk Road Project; and musical score for the Contemporary American Theater Festival. Kalyan also helped with, created and performed the tabla part and its audio score for "Lahara Concerto for Sitar/Guitar and Tabla" by Fareed Haque, which debuted with the Chicago Symphonietta.

As a composer of a new musical style that Kalyan calls "Ragazz," he is interested in music that employs and explores the basic rules and shapes of Indian Ragas and Indian rhythmic language and patterns with the forms, styles and structures of jazz and western classical sonorities and orchestration techniques. Visit www.kalyanpathak.com for upcoming shows.