Melodies of the Hindustani Tradition 

Expressive raags through improvisation & tradition

Featuring:

Kamal Ahmad – Sitar
Nilan Chaudhuri – Tabla

Kamal Ahmad’s path to music wasn’t conventional, and that’s exactly what makes him a better teacher. His journey began with tabla before his elder sister introduced him to the sitar, sparking a devotion that would reshape his life. He sought formal training under sarod maestro Arnab Chakrabarty, who introduced him to sitar virtuoso Vinayak Chittar and scholar-vocalist Pandit Arijit Mahalanabis, a lineage of mentorship rooted in the deepest traditions of Indian classical music. Trained as a neuroscientist, Kamal started his serious musical study later than most. Rather than a setback, this became his advantage. His scientific mind drove him to find the most efficient, intentional methods of practice, the same methods he now teaches his students. He didn’t just learn raga music. He studied how people learn, and built his teaching around it.

Nilan Chaudhuri is a Bay Area based percussionist, educator, and performer. Initiated into the tradition of Indian Classical Music at the age of five by his father, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Nilan has been performing as a tabla soloist and accompanist for nearly two decades. Prior to beginning his formal training with his father in 2000, Nilan studied tabla with Brad Van Cleve, Tim Witter, and Uttam Chakraborty, all of whom are senior disciples of his father. 

Drawing inspiration from his father’s innovative approach to classical tabla solo,  Nilan was determined from a young age to be a soloist. He presented his first public tabla recital at the age of eleven, at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, in the presence of Maestro Ali Akbar Khansahib. It was during these formative years that Nilan was introduced to the world of Tabla accompaniment by Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, providing rhythmic support for his vocal and instrumental classes at the college.  

Visual Art Exhibition: BĀZ-TĀB (Reflection)

BĀZ-TĀB (Reflection) by Sima Shahverdi, a large-scale installation featuring charcoal drawings and paper sculpture, presented as part of A Season for Iran.

BĀZ-TĀB (meaning reflection) is a body of work rooted in the architectural memory of Iran. Each piece begins as a large-scale hand drawing of a specific Iranian site—a courtyard, a dome, an arched passage—built gradually in charcoal, documented frame by frame, and brought to life through animation. Three-dimensional paper sculptures emerge from the drawings, collapsing the boundary between image and object. Together, these elements seek to recreate something closer to how we actually remember a place: not as a photograph, but as a dream—fragmentary, layered, and alive.

At Red Poppy Art House, the two parallel walls become the interior faces of an Iranian house—one the tabestān-neshin (summer room), the other the zemestān-neshin (winter room). The audience sits at the center, where the courtyard would be.

We are Iranians scattered across cities, each carrying memories of a place we can no longer easily return to. My own memories are of the architectural spaces I walked through as a student—the hum of voices beneath a dome, a voice carrying across a courtyard, the cool wind descending through a badgir. I invite the audience to gather at the howz, sit by the water, and look up at the sky.

This is not documentation. It is not nostalgia. It is the act of remembering as a collective, embodied, present-tense experience. We become part of the house. The house becomes part of us.

MAPP GENERAL PROGRAM

Join us in MAPP at all other spaces throughout the Mission District.