Srinivas Krishnan Artist In Residence; Visiting Instructor, Music Director of Global Rhythms World Music Ensemble krishns@muohio.edu

Global Rhythms is a combination of traditional and non-traditional music from all over the world. The group utilizes an eclectic blend of Middle Eastern, Caribbean, Indian, African, Brazilian, Latin, Australian, and Western instrumentation to produce its own unique sound.

Global Rhythms was a concept conceived by Miami Alumn Srinivas Krishnan. It was a dream and a big one -which needed help in 1996. The faculty at Miami University led by Pamela Fox beleived that this dream was attainable.

SRINIVAS KRISHNAN is a Master Percussionist from India and has been trained under four master musicians in India. He gave his first solo recital at the age of 16 and was featured as a percussionist at the University of North Texas at the age of 21.

Srinivas performs on the tabla, the ghatam, the Middle Eastern dumbek, the Irish Bodhran, and the mridangam. His ability to perform with any ensemble has allowed him to be featured with the greatest artists in Europe, Asia and North America, giving over 1,000 concerts with such luminaries as Bob Schietroma, Grammy winners Horacio Hernandez, Eguie Castrillo, and Glen Velez, Dr. L. Subramaniam, Umayalpuram Sivaraman from India, Arnaldo Vacca from Italy, Jon Santos, Victor Mendoza, K. Sekar (cellist for world renowned music director AR Rahman), V.S. Narasimhan (Violinist for Illayaraja), Donald Mattingley, Pascal Younge, and Casey Scheurell to name a few.

Global Rhythms benefits from the experiences of music professors Ethan Sperry and Roger Davis, co-directors. Davis’ experiences lie in the bass guitar and musical arrangements while Sperry specializes in vocals. The talent these instructors possess echoes in the unique and beautiful sound Global Rhythms plays for its audiences. “Certainly if nothing else the music has an intrinsic beauty and that has its own worth,” says Davis. With the fusion of two different cultural musical styles, Indian and Western, Global Rhythms is becoming a pioneer in the music world. “Music is a living demonstration that different people can sit down on a stage and play together,” he says. “Underneath our differences we are really similar and share certain values.”

Fall of 2001 welcomed a total of 82 members to Global Rhythms, mostly Miami University students. In addition to growing instrumentalists, they work closely with the Miami University Collegiate Choral, and they aim to involve dancers in the upcoming years.

With such enthusiastic directors and talented students, it is no wonder that musical performers are coming out of the woodwork for the opportunity to play with Global Rhythms. “We’ve been asked to play with several musicians including band members of Peter Gabriel,” says Davis. “El Negro Hernandez of Santana, named the best drummer of the century, comes all the way from Italy for a small fee just to play with us.”

Global Rhythms concerts have included:

MU Gamelan Ensemble, directed by William Albin, featuring Mr. Made Lasmawan
Grammy winning artists Glen Velez and Eguie Castrillo
"Voices of India," directed by Kanniks
Klezmer Fiesta with Michèle Gingras
Drumline with Jason Koontz and Agoram Saravanan
Calypso, featuring Pansy Chang, Dan Faehnle and Chris Tanner
Including a documentary filming of the concert by professor Krishnan Hariharan