Niladri Kumaar: The Space Between The Notes, Honoring Zakir Hussain
About This Event
Niladri Kumaar: The Space Between The Notes at NJPAC is a program honoring Ustad Zakir Hussain. Hussain, the eldest son of tabla master Alla Rakha, was a tabla player, composer and producer who spent much of his career in the San Francisco Bay Area and helped bring Indian classical music to wider international audiences.
About The Space Between The Notes
Now at NJPAC, *The Space Between The Notes* centers on Niladri Kumar’s genre-blurring approach to Indian classical language, framed as a tribute to tabla artist, composer, and producer Ustad Zakir Hussain. Hussain, son of Alla Rakha, spent much of his career in the San Francisco Bay Area and helped carry Indian classical music into broader American music life, including New York stages. Featured performers include Niladri Kumar and Zakir Hussain. The program’s clearest point is not fusion for its own sake, but attention to how rhythm and melody travel between traditions.
About the Artist
Zakir Hussain
Ustad Zakir Hussain Qureshi was an Indian tabla player, composer, arranger, percussionist, music producer and film actor who was based for much of his career in the San Francisco Bay Area. The eldest son of esteemed tabla player Alla Rakha, Zakir Hussain was widely regarded as the greatest tabla player of his generation and one of its finest percussionists.