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Watch Zoe and Idris Rahman live |
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Writers’ Block with Anupama Chandrashekhar |
Watch Zoe and Idris Rahman live, experience some ‘Desi Jazz’ and breathe easy at Buzz
British Bangladeshi sister and brother duo Zoe and Idris perform at Chennai this month.
Born in Chichester, UK, Zoe studied music at Oxford University and jazz performance at Berklee College of Music, Boston, where she had lessons with the inspirational pianist JoAnne Brackeen.
Described in The Observer newspaper as "one of the finest young pianists in Europe", Zoe Rahman has firmly established herself as one of the brightest stars in the contemporary jazz scene. Her most recent album, Melting Pot, has been short-listed for the 2006 Nationwide Mercury Prize and was voted Jazz Album of the Year at the 2006 Parliamentary Jazz Awards. The album has been hailed as “one of the most distinctive piano trio albums” (Jazzwise magazine), a “fantastic new album” (Courtney Pine, BBC Radio 2), and “in every way, an impressive sequel to her debut” (Jazz Review).
Zoe will be performing with her brother Idris Rahman, a tenor saxophonist who is at the heart of the band Soothsayers. Idris co-writes and produces the band’s material. He also plays the clarinet, bass clarinet and the flute.
Idris has played with various African artists and reggae stars like Junior Delgado, Rico Rodriguez, pop acts such as Stereo MCs and Dodgy, and cutting edge jazz groups like The Zoe Rahman Quartet and Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear.
For further information please contact British Council, Chennai at + 91 044 4205 0600.
Writers’ Block
An evening of readings, musings and more as theatre courts the written word with Anupama Chandrashekhar
9 March, 7.00 p.m.
Writers’ Block is a unique mind space of ideas and inspiration. It celebrates both individual talent and the British Council’s role in facilitating internationalism through professional development opportunities in the UK.
Anupama is a young playwright with enormous talent that is already being acclaimed worldwide. Her engrossing Wings of Vedanthangal was the Asian winner of the Commonwealth short story competition 2006. Anupama is a Charles Wallace awardee and has had her commissioned short plays Whiteout (also aired on the BBC) and Kabaddi-Kabaddi (also staged at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival) performed at the prestigious Royal Court Theatre, London. Her play Acid, which premiered at Prithvi in Mumbai, was the runner-up for the Jane Chambers International Award for Women Playwrights. No stranger to Chennai’s blossoming theatre scene, her first play Closer Apart made its debut here in 2003.
Deesh Mariwala of The Grossly Commercial Theatre Company will direct the evening of reading from Anupama Chandrasekhar’s works. Deesh is a well-known actor and director and has been associated with British Council for over 18 years. Join this fascinating reading journey as he reads extracts from Wings of Vedanthangal and Whiteout.
For further information please contact British Council, Chennai at +91 044 4205 0600.
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