Thrilled to invite you all to this concert at IHC, REGISTER FOR FREE HERE

From L to R: Anand HS, me, Anshu Anand and Shahana

Something exciting and totally surprising happened at the recent concert at the TaalMagic Annual Concert in Bangalore (you can still watch the live-stream here):

I was incredibly honored to receive the first annual ‘Meenakshi Hariharasubramani Award for Excellence in Music’ - this award was created this year in honor of Anand HS’ parents (TaalMagic founder and my co-performer in the concert). 

This has been an amazing year of acknowledgment for my years of dedication to Hindustani music and this one has totally surprised and moved me. In a field where the vast majority of our efforts are not visible to the public, this type of recognition gives the energy and encouragement to continue striving. I will give my best efforts to continue my growth so as to bring forth the music that can help and inspire all. 

The event itself was a wonderful showcase of TaalMagic Trust’s work teaching and promoting Indian classical music. Vidhi and I had a great time staying with Anand Anshu, Shahana and Aniket and family, we enjoyed a lot; eating delicious home cooked food, playing badminton, singing karaoke and even talking about football (I tried 😅) . 

In addition to the honor and recognition that this award bestows, when I hang it on the wall back home in Vermont it will also remind us of all the precious memories of a great time shared together.

Give thanks for life!

With Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt (center) and Guruji Pt. Alok Lahiri (right) from the Alaap Festival in Madhyamgram 

"During a fateful study-abroad trip to Delhi in 2007, a chance encounter with a CD by Indian slide guitarist VM Bhatt led Joel..." 

Many of you may know that my bio on various promotional materials throughout the years has started with this line. Finally, in the end of 2022, I got to meet the musician that inspired my choice of instrument in pursuing Indian classical music. The picture is blurry because of the chaos going on backstage at the end of the maestro's performance: he is really quite the celebrity and was just mobbed with admirers trying to take pictures and ask him questions. Thanks to Guruji, I got a brief introduction before he was on his way. I am satisfied I had the opportunity to tell Vishwa Mohan Bhatt that I listened to his CD 'Classics for Pleasure' and started originally learning from his disciple Dr. Ranjan Kumar of Delhi. 

However, it's abundantly clear to me that I am on the right path learning from my current teacher and hence being associated with some of the finest artists of India. I also have no interest in following any other artist's slide guitar style: what I have developed over the years through my own hard work combined with the new techniques I am learning from Guruji and his student Tanmoy Mondal are where it's at for me. 

This all transpired at a totally packed classical music concert called 'Alaap Festival' put on by the Gharana organization in Madhyamgram in West Bengal, India a few weeks back in December. This concert was partially organized by my teacher Pt. Alok Lahiri and so I enjoyed access to the backstage and front row seats. One of the highlights was listening to tabla legend Pt. Swapan Chaudhuri's tabla solo as the culmination of the night. 

Also, it happened again..! A fan of my music identified me in the crowd and came up to introduce themselves. A fellow musician no less: Ms. Garika Bannerjee, an Indian slide guitarist studying with Pt. VM Bhatt. 
 

Garika Bannerjee, a slide guitarist studying with Pt. VM Bhatt and me 

Me with a senior student of Guruji's, the excellent sarodist Sayam Panja in his home in Jujarsaha, West Bengal 

After the concert, I spent part of the week with Guruji’s senior disciple Sayam Panja and enjoyed the generous hospitality and beautiful surrounds of his home in nearby Jujarsaha. I drank in this rich composition that we are to perform in the upcoming concert and saw lots of beautiful birds! All here for the winter season. 

I am clearly in the right place with the right people. 

Back to the city, I went with Guruji and fellow student Jean from France to attend an amazing concert from backstage in Kolkata: there I got to witness sitarist Mita Nag’s brilliant performance in raag Patdeep and again I got to meet and listen to Pt Swapan Chaudhuri’s solo performance. This tabla solo was totally inspiring, mind-bending; these tihais (patterns of rhythmic phrases repeated three times) that end just before saam (first beat) have me thinking more deeply about rhythms and rhythmic composition.

I met tabla legend Tanmoy Bose, just briefly but a caught a vibe of kindness and mastery. 

Finally, I am back with Howrah city, preparing for the concert on 14th Jan when I will perform with the senior students in the instrumental ensemble; not to be missed if you are in the area! This composition is quite unique in the classical repertoire and has my chops honed to a new level. It starts with a blistering taan (melodic run) that I previously thought was impossible to pull off without considerable time warming up. We had our final rehearsal today though and it's sounding quite excellent. 

L to R: Pt. Swapan Chaudhuri, Jean Desaire (sarodist from France) and me 

L to R: me, Pt. Alok Lahiri (Guruji), Tanmoy Bose and Jean Desaire 

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In other news, I've added two more dates to my India tour! Incredible that opportunities keep coming my way. Check out my full tour below: 

14 January - Ramgopal Mancha - Annual Sur Sangam Classical Music Concert - Howrah, India 

21 January - Social Gatherings House Concerts - Surat, India 

29 January - the Indian Music Experience Museum - Taalmagic 1st Annual Program, presenting Joel Veena with Anand HS on tabla - Bangalore, India 

12 February - India Habitat Centre (theatre) - Joel Veena & Amit Singhal present 'Milap' with Gaurav Mahto on tabla - Delhi India 

25 February - Harkat Studios - Ragas for Peace & Happiness, with Rakshanand Panchal on tabla - Mumbai, India 

Thank you for your continued support, 

Wishing you and yours a happy New Year, 

Joel 'Veena' Eisenkramer 

P.S. Don't believe the hype: Indian classical music is not a "dying art form" - see in these pictures below: packed concert halls and a room full of young students (they can really play, especially the girl in the pink). 

Did you know? 

I just added another full-length concert recording to my patronage hub: my performance at Omega Institute for Holistic Studies with Mir Naqibul Islam on tabla. 

For less than the price of a sandwich every month ($5/month) you become a sustaining force in the creation of my music and get access to exclusive content like these full-length concerts plus my entire discography via hi-fidelity download and streaming on the Bandcamp app. 

Thanks! 
 

Brattleboro, Vermont 05302 

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At the 68th Sawai Gandharva music festival in Pune, India - pic by Mr. Sanjay Kelkar, who has been taking portraits at the festival for the last 30 years. 

Season's greetings from India! 

I reached Mumbai in the beginning of the month and have been spending my days meeting family and friends, traveling, meeting concert organizers and fellow musicians, and attending some of the most incredible performances of my life. 

I am feeling a deep sense of affirmation for my path in this music as, at each event I have attended so far, something incredible keeps happening: fans of my music have identified me in the crowd and taken time out to personally greet me and appreciate my concerts and recordings. Some have been following my music for some time on the internet, like young Sarvesh Raghoji and his lovely family, who were always in attendance for my online concert series during the lockdowns of 2020, Ragas for Peace & Happiness: 

From L to R: Namita, Sarvesh Raghoji, me, Vidhi and Mrs Raghoji at Sawai Gandharva festival 2022 

Here are some of my reflections on attending the festival, written December 18, 2022: 

Vidhi and I attended the first two days of Sawai Gandharva festival in Pune this week and it was an incredible and affirming experience. 

It was my first time attending this historic music festival, started 60+ years ago by legendary singer Bharat Ratna Pt Bhimsen Joshi in honor of his guru Sawai Gandharva and guru’s guru Ustad Abdul Karim Khan. 

What was most amazing was that, despite never attending this festival in my life, I arrived to be greeted by my friends and peers! Sarvesh Raghoji and family, who listened to nearly all my Ragas for Peace and Happiness live streams in 2020, greeted me immediately and showed us the good places to sit, we caught up like old friends. I also met Ajit from Kansen Club on Twitter (the excellent handle for all classical concert listings across India), last we met was in Bangalore at my concert with Gordon Korstange at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in 2019. I met fellow slide guitarist Manas Goswami. Also Vidhi and I met Chaitanya Nadkarny, who works on the wonderful Ragya app, to plan future concerts and discuss strategies for growing the audience of Indian classical music. 

Living a lot of the time in Vermont, where most people only have a vague idea about my work in this music, it was moving and a huge boost to be welcomed by this lovely musical family; music-lovers, musicians, organizers. We sat together on the ground in the huge open air of Maharashtriya Mandal, munched on bread pakora and drank cha. 

Musically the highlight was far and away the brilliant soul stirring performance of master violinists N Rajam, Sangeeta Shankar, Ragini & Nandini Shankar - the raag Darbari they played was a beautiful dream that we never wanted to end. We heard one violin, in one voice, played by four masterful personalities. I think my sur (tuning) has improved after just listening to this performance 🤯. The support the musicians showed each other on stage set a new standard for jugalbandi (collaboration) in my mind. The tabla accompaniment by Mukesh Jadhav was perfect: a calm and powerful storm that held the lofty strings in the heavens. 

I hope to make this an annual tradition as I had so much fun and got great energy and inspiration. 

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In the past week, I have attended more concerts and traveled to Howrah where I am receiving taleem (training) from Guruji, Pt. Alok Lahiri, and preparing for the the annual Sur Sangam Academy of Music concert on January 14th, 2023. 

Actually, the days have been so packed that it's really too much for one email. So tune in next time to learn about how I met my original inspiration, Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, and received the blessings of tabla legend Pt. Swapan Chaudhuri. 

In the meantime, if you are in Delhi or Bengaluru please mark your calendars and tell your loved ones about my upcoming concerts: 

29 January - the Indian Music Experience Museum - Taalmagic 1st Annual Program, presenting Joel Veena with Anand HS on tabla 

12 February - India Habitat Centre (theatre) - Joel Veena & Amit Singhal present 'Milap' with Gaurav Mahto on tabla 

Wishing you a merry Christmas and happy holidays from Howrah!  From L to R: Guruji, Jean from France, Somdutta Chatterjee, Guruma, me and Abhisek Lahiri. 

Thank you for your continued support, 

Wishing you and yours a joyous solstice season, 

Joel 'Veena' Eisenkramer 

Did you know? 

There are currently 9 exclusive offerings on my patronage hub including several full length concerts, not available anywhere else. Subscribers also receive access to my ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY via hi-fidelity download and streaming via the Bandcamp app. 

I'm happy to be able to share with you a very special recording from earlier this year. The album 'Interior Landscapes' features two tracks of alaap, a collaboration with Amit Singhal, recorded and produced by myself. The tracks are available on all digital streaming platforms as well as right here on my own website.

STREAM INTERIOR LANDSCAPES

Liner notes:

By April of 2022, it had been nearly two years since Amit bhai and I had played together in person. Post-pandemic, my visa was restricted and I had only 28 days to visit family in Mumbai, receive taleem from Guruji in Howrah and meet friends in Delhi. We rented a restored 1920s flat for 3 days in central Delhi and set up microphones around the large living room. We sat on the carpet day and night catching up, discussing the state of the world and our plans to live in it, drinking tea and recording alaap in various ragas. Our simple set up yielded a beautiful sound, representative of the calm and thoughtful exploration that was occurring. We played in a gentle way, cautious to try and let the landscapes of our minds and spirits come out from the interior and ring out in the empty hall. These tracks are the music of a previously suppressed and dormant creativity, returning to find the world drastically changed but still thirsting for true music. 

This is Interior Landscapes.

Interior Landscapes is releasing August 31, 2022 on all digital platforms. This album features two alaap recordings from Amit and my reunion in Delhi earlier this year. We rented out a large restored 1930s flat in the center of the city, set up microphones around the room and spent three days recording and catching up. Mostly what we were doing was attuning ourselves again to playing with each other after such a long gap. In years earlier, Amit and I spent a lot of time playing together, practicing and fine-tuning our duet style. This resulted in two albums: Chintan and Milap. Interior Landscapes is less prepared but perhaps deeper musically, it's the true musical stories of two good friends, long separated, reunited in music. 

Spotify users, pre-save the album here 

Or get it right now on the patronage hub

I'm thrilled to share with you that there are now 8 (EIGHT) exclusive releases available on my Bandcamp patronage hub. 

For those you don't know.... 
  

• For $50/year you get all of these exclusive releases, plus my entire discography of already released music and everything I make in the future. 
• All the music is yours to keep forever as a high quality download AND it's streamable online in your browser and via the Bandcamp app for iOS and android. 
• On top of that, you get the satisfaction of knowing that you are supporting my art in a meaningful way. 

WHAT'S NEW is that my concert with Jake Charkey and Mir Naqibul Islam is now available via the patronage hub. The whole concert! The sound quality is really excellent and I'm really happy to be able to share this landmark performance with the world. It was a good-sized audience in Putney, Vermont, but I know there are many of you far and wide who would have loved to be there. Now you can listen to it to your heart's content. 

With ample patronage, I will be able to focus more time of practicing, composing and performing. It's through patronage of the arts that most of the great artists in history were able to create their finest works; I'd like a shot at that too. 

Check it out below, I really appreciate your support! 

Joel Veena Patronage Hub

Wishing you and yours the very best, 

Joel 'Veena' Eisenkramer

I'm pleased to announce that I will be performing with two of my good friends and musicians who I respect and inspire me on June 25 in Putney, VT: Jake Charkey, one of the only people performing Hindustani music on the cello, and Mir Naqibul Islam, the hardest working tabla player in NY. This is a special concert being presented as a collaboration between NextStage Arts and Brooklyn Raga Massive. Jake, Mir and I will present a one-hour program of evening ragas played on cello, Indian slide guitar and tabla. We will present music in the traditional, north Indian style that we have learned from our respective gurus for over a decade. Jake is a disciple of Vidushi N Rajam and Mir is a representative of the Farukhabad gharana, having learned from Pt. Ashoke Paul.

The performance will be followed by a concert of Carnatic jazz fusion by the Arun Ramanurthy Trio. 

GET TICKETS HERE 

Saturday, June 25 
NextStage Arts 
15 Kimball Hill 
Putney VT

Many people have asked me about the name 'Joel Veena', wondering if it is the name of an instrument or a person, and I am writing this in way of explanation. In winter of 2016 I started to perform under the pseudonym Joel Veena. It was suggested to me by my musician friends in Delhi to take a stage name because my surname, Eisenkramer, is not so catchy and has always given presenters difficulty in pronouncing it (my father is also a professional musician and performed for some time as Peter Michaels). 

The word 'veena' comes from Sanskrit and refers to a plucked stringed instrument, of which there are many varieties and variations throughout history (including the contemporary Saraswati veena in popular use in Carnatic music and the Rudra veena played in Dhrupad music). I decided on Joel Veena as an act of respect for this amazing instrument and music. Rather than changing the name of the Indian slide guitar to reflect my identity and contribution to the music, I thought to change my own name. My deep study of this music and instrument has indeed changed me as a person and altered my destiny so profoundly, I can safely say that many of the great blessings of my life started to come to fruition when I dedicated myself to the earnest study of Hindustani classical music. The name is an acknowledgment that I am transformed: I truly believe that this music has so much to offer us in this modern time and that the Indian slide guitar has a unique role to play. Since the Indian slide guitar is an evolution of the guitar, originally modified from the Hawaiian guitars brought to Calcutta in the 1930s, this instrument is especially accessible and fascinating to a very broad audience of people. While many people in countries outside of India curious to learn Indian classical music find sitar and sarod intimidating, the Indian slide guitar is seen as more familiar. Guitar has become the people's instrument the world over and finding strings and accessories for the instrument is relatively easy to do in countries all over the world. 

I mean no disrespect to any of the pioneers of this instrument who wish to call it by another name that credits their innovation; especially Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, whose recordings were the first to inspire me to try and learn this instrument. As a college student in Delhi in 2007, I bought a CD 'Classics for Pleasure' and it led me to seek out and study this music. I don't wish to debate the name of the instrument but merely to clarify the reasons and intention behind my own name. 

I continue on this path as a perpetual student and strive to be the best representative of the instrument that I possibly can. I travel regularly from the USA to Kolkata to take taleem from my guru Pt. Alok Lahiri. I promote artists from south Asia in the US and provide a platform for their performance in my locality. I help to connect Indian artists with venues to provide letters of invitation for their tours. I act as a resource for Americans trying to learn Indian classical music in the US, connecting students with teachers in India, arranging for instruments and trying to help western students understand more about the culture of music in India. I help students who cannot afford to import an instrument from India to modify their own guitar so that they can get started and try it out. My performances in the west always have an educational quality to try and increase appreciation and understanding of the music in other countries. My goal in the next 10 years is to create an organization which facilitates the healthy and continuous artistic exchange of Indian classical musicians in the US and in India and south Asia, providing platforms, visa assistance, educational outreach and access to authentic teachers. 

I was not born as this person but have been transformed by the music and the instrument. I have dedicated my life to these pursuits and will continue to do so as Joel 'Veena' Eisenkramer. I offer my humble pranam to the great artists who have gone before and wish to be reported as 'present' in the roll call of those who are serving this music with their all in the 21st century.

- Joel 'Veena' Eisenkramer

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Patdeep is a late afternoon raga, we performed as the snow was settling down and the sun was setting. You can watch the full concert on Shanti Mandir Walden’s YouTube page, all beautifully produced by Dipanshu.

It was a great experience performing at Shanti Mandir - I stayed for the weekend and really enjoyed talking with the everyone there, soaking in that peaceful ambience. Being immersed in an environment where everyone was primarily thinking about spiritual topics and meditation was something special. 

Give thanks for life