Pejman Hadadi
Pejman Hadadi is a virtuoso Iranian tombak and daf (frame drum) player who has been hailed as "the finest Iranian percussionist living in the West" (KPFA Radio, Berkeley, CA). Hadadi began playing tombak at the age of ten under the masters of the instrument Asadollah Hejazi and Bahman Rajabi. In 1990, upon immigrating to the [...] Mani Bolouri
Mani Bolouri is a composer and virtuoso player of the kamancheh (spiked fiddle) and gheychak (bowed fiddle). Mr. Bolouri began his musical studies at the age of ten under the guidance of his grandfather who was an ashough (a popular, traveling musician) and who taught him Armenian folk music. He has also studied with many […]
Clora Bryant
Born and raised in Texas, Clora Bryant came to Los Angeles in 1945, where she became part of the swinging music scene on Central Avenue. An accomplished jazz trumpet player and vocalist, Bryant was the only female horn player ever to perform with saxophone legend Charlie Parker. In the early 1950s, Bryant was a member […]
Ciro Hurtado
Ciro Hurtado is a Peruvian guitarist/composer who has been actively performing since the early 1970s as a soloist and as a member of various groups in Peru, Mexico, Cuba, Europe and the United States. He studied in Peru with guitar master Augusto Portugal. Hurtado is currently the musical director and has produced several albums for [...] Cesar Castro
Cesar Castro both plays and builds the requinto jarocho or guitarra de son, the melodic lead instrument of traditional music from Veracruz Mexico known as son jarocho. Son jarocho is a mix of indigenous Mexican, African, Spanish and Arabic sounds. Mr. Castro began training in son jarocho at age 11, joining the pathbreaking group, Mono […]
Abdoulaye Diabate
Abdoulaye Diabate was born in Guinea, West Africa, to a long lineage of Mand jali-musicians, practitioners of a musical tradition that dates back to the 13th century. The rise of modern Mand music began in the 1920s with the introduction of the acoustic guitar to an instrumental repertoire that had previously included balafon (xylophone), nkoni [...] Radha Prasad
Radha Prasad was born and raised in India and taught himself to play the bamboo flute at an early age. He studied for 18 years as an apprentice to Pandit Hariprasad Chaurais, India’s foremost flutist. He has toured extensively throughout India, Europe and the United States. He moved to the U.S. in 1992, and has […]
Ho Chan
Ho Chan plays every instrument of the pin peat ensemble, a form of percussive Cambodian classical music. He began to study at age 16 with his grandfather. In 1975, under the Khmer Rouge regime, Chan was forced into slave labor camps; he fled to Thailand in 1979 where he joined a pin peat ensemble headed […]
Radha Prasad
Radha Prasad was born and raised in India and taught himself to play the bamboo flute at an early age. He studied for 18 years as an apprentice to Pandit Hariprasad Chaurais, India’s foremost flutist. He has toured extensively throughout India, Europe and the United States. He moved to the U.S. in 1992, and has […]
Katsuko Teruya
Katsuko Teruya began studying kutuu (Okinawan koto, a stringed instrument), at the age of 18 under master Nae Kochi of the Naha Koyokai in Japan. Katsuko moved to Hawai'i in the mid-1950s, and earned a Senior Teaching Certificate in 1965. In 1975 she established the Hawai'i chapter of the Teruya Shokyoku Kenkyukai. She has served [...]