Bio:
Education:
Birth – present
Mentorship with father Ashwin Batish and from late grandfather Shiv Dayal Batish
Instruments of study: dholak, tablā, sitār, surbāhār, vichitra veenā, bansurī, violin, sārangi
2021
Master’s in Music Composition at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Program and Hindustani performance practice advisor — Dard Neuman
Composition — Michelle Lou, David Evan Jones
2019
B.A. Music – University of California, Santa Cruz
Advisor — Dard Neuman
Composition — Larry Polansky
Drum Set — George Marsh
Improvisation and Ensemble Performance — Stan Poplin
Western Art music training and performance practice — Anatole Leikin, Maria Ezerova
Piano — Faith Lanam
Hindustani music from Maihar Gharana — Aashish Khan
Awards and Honors:
2019
Regents Fellowship for first-year graduate study, University of California, Santa Cruz (M.A.)
Hortense Zuckerman Prize – for Outstanding Achievement in Music Scholarship and Performance, Department of Music, University of California, Santa Cruz (B.A.)
2016-2018
Dean’s Honors, University of California, Santa Cruz
Teaching Experience
UC Santa Cruz – Teaching Assistant, 2019 – 2021
Music 30: Theory, Literature, and Musicianship
Music 14: Preparatory Musicianship
UC Santa Cruz – Undergraduate Reader, 2019
Music 55: Rhythms of North India
Guest Lectures:
Music 80X: Music of India
Accompanying Ustad Aashish Khan and demonstrating tala on tabla
Music 11D: Introduction to World Music
Raga and Tala Theory of North Indian classical music on sitar and tabla
Recordings:
As leader
2021
Binaries in Cycle, Woven Strands Productions
Released on Bandcamp and major streaming services
As co-leader
2018
Triumvirate – At Second Glance, independent
Released on major streaming services.
2017
Triumvirate – Raised Standards, independent
Released on Bandcamp
As side-person
2016
Sitar Power – Jazz Is Where Is, Batish Records
2012
Sitar Maestro Ashwin Batish & Family In Concert, Batish Records
Released on CD and on Amazon and iTunes
Select Compositions and Performances
2020
Viol Unfolding no. 1 – Written for Erik Anderson on bass viol premiering in Mill Valley, CA (forthcoming on February 5)
Let Go – for trio of piano, double bass, and drum set (January 2)
2019
A Second Glance – for EKTA ensemble
Keshav ki Todi – for shruti-intoned Fender Rhodes, bass viol, double bass, and drum set
Premiered in opening-set for Amirtha Kidambi and Elder Ones at Kuumbwa Jazz Center (July 27)
Undergraduate Senior Recital at UC Santa Cruz Recital Hall (June 5) with the following premieres of works:
Spinning – for string quartet and EKTA ensemble
Gayatri – for EKTA ensemble
Expansion in Puriya – for piano and drum set
Keshav Batish and EKTA – Monterey Jazz Festival (September 29)
Sitar Power – Kuumbwa Jazz Center (March)
2018
Wingspan – for trio of piano, double bass, and drum set
Loss – for trio of piano, double bass and drum set
String Quartet no. 1 – Movement 1, Scherzo, Movement 3
Shadaj-Gram — for shruti-intoned, computer-interpreted playback
Prelude-Alap — for Sitar and Valotti-Tempered Harpsichord
Fantasy, Tanam, Ektal Gat, and Gigue in Rag Charukeshi — for Valotti-Tempered Harpsichord
For Mama (script score for varied instruments)
Ashwin Batish and Keshav Batish – Winnipeg Folk Festival
2017
Sitar Power– Chico World Music Festival (September 9)
2016
Count Me In – for sitar and midi-playback, arranged and premiered with UCSC Small Jazz Ensemble (piano, bass, drum set, guitar, flute, tenor saxophone, flugelhorn)
2015
San Jose Chamber Orchestra – featuring music of Ashwin Batish, Le Petit Trianon Theatre, San Jose, CA
Sitar Power – Ghanafest, Malta
2014
Sitar Power with the Violent Femmes, The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA
MUD Music Festival, Lleida, Catalonia, Spain
2013
Listen for Life Tour – Sitar Power, Ford Amphitheatre, Hollywood, CA
2012
Maharaja: The Splendor of Indian Royal Courts – Ashwin Batish and Family, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
2011
Sitar Power – The Independent, San Francisco, CA
Professional Experience and Affiliations
2020 – present
Board Member of Kuumbwa Jazz Center
2019 – 2021
Vice President and Active Board Member of Santa Cruz Baroque Festival
2017-present
Adjudicator for Kuumbwa Jazz Center Honor Band
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).