What’s American about American Music?

Illustrated presentation by Sharon Lowen

What comes to mind as the music of North America? Rock and Roll, Gershwin, Broadway, Gospel, John Cage, Indigenous, Pueblo, and Inuit tribal music, jazz, swing? How about the folk and popular music in the ethnic style of the Ukrainian, Irish, Scottish, Polish, Hispanic, and Jewish communities, among others. The talk presents a kaleidoscopic aural journey and a multi-cultural country’s musical heritage

Chair: Sunit Tandon, well known theatre and film personality, and Director, India Habitat Centre

Sharon Lowen has bridged cultures performing, writing, teaching Odissi, Manipuri, Chhau, Western Ballet and Modern Dance; and cross-cultural education internationally and in India over 50 years and via her NGO, Manasa-Art Without Frontiers

Rajkamal Chowdhry ki Kavita

Panel discussion with Gopeshwar Singh; Deo Shankar Naveen; and Amitabh Ray

(Collaboration: The Raza Foundation)

 Art collector, patron, philanthropist and the founder of Sanskriti Pratishthan, O.P Jain
 and designer, scenographer, multi-faceted artiste and Sanskriti Awardee, Sumant Jayakrishnan 
—in conversation with Sujata Prasad and Oroon Das

Third programme in a new series of monthly conversations staged in collaboration with Ahad Anhad

In the Body of a Woman: Essays on Law, Gender and Society

By Aaliya Waziri (Simon & Schuster IN; 2023)

Speakers: Ms. Shruti Katiyar, Advocate, Delhi High Court (moderator); Ms. Malvika Trivedi, Senior Advocate, Delhi High Court ; Ms. Warisha Farasat, Advocate, Delhi High Court ; Ms. Aaliya Waziri, Advocate, Delhi High Court & Author of the Book 


 

The Extraordinary Life and Times of Harry Belafonte

Presentation by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
 
Born in New York to underprivileged parents with origins in the Caribbean islands of the West Indies, Harry Belafonte was one the world’s most popular and influential singers, activists, and actors. He passed away on 25 April at the age of 96. Some of his most popular songs, including “Jamaica Farewell” and “Banana Boat Song,” have been performed and adapted across the globe from the 1950s onwards. He not only performed in the calypso genre but also sang blues, folk, and gospel songs. Belafonte considered actor and singer Paul Robeson his mentor and was a close confidante of Martin Luther King. He was an outspoken critic of US Presidents George W Bush and Donald Trump, and even described the former as the biggest terrorist on the planet.
 
Moderator: N. Madhavan, music lover and veteran journalist
 
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is a music lover and an independent journalist, author, publisher, documentary film maker and teacher

Author, columnist and Chair of The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust, Kishwar Desai in conversation with Sujata Prasad and Oroon Das

Second programme in a new series of monthly conversations staged in collaboration with Ahad Anhad

Heavy Metal: How a Global Corporation Poisoned Kodaikanal

By Ameer Shahul (Pan MacMillan India: 2023)

About the book
A terrifying investigative account of a global corporation’s role in perpetrating India’s greatest mercury poisoning catastrophe.
In 2001, a Hindustan Unilever-owned thermometer factory in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, made national headlines when a massive dump of broken mercury thermometers was discovered at a local scrapyard. As the multinational corporation conducted one hasty internal assessment after another to save face, state authorities discovered that the company had violated all acceptable guidelines for toxic waste disposal measures, causing grievous harm to its workers’ health and the region’s fragile ecosystem.As evidence of mercury poisoning among workers mounted, the local community – aided by environmental watchdog Greenpeace and various public-interest organizations – launched a battle against the multibillion-dollar conglomerate that would last fifteen years, culminating in an undisclosed settlement paid to 600 of its ex-employees. And despite the factory’s closure, scientific reports would reveal mercury levels to be 1,000 times higher than the safe limit, raising serious concerns about HUL’s toxic legacy in the hill station.For years, Ameer Shahul, a former investigative reporter and Greenpeace campaigner, closely tracked the Kodaikanal mercury poisoning case. The result is Heavy Metal, a blistering account of a colossal industrial tragedy precipitated by corporate negligence and acts of omission and commission at the highest levels.

The author will be in conversation with: Ms. Karuna Ezara Parikh, Writer & Activist  

 

Workshop on Cities and Plastics Pollution: Challenges and Solutions
World Environment Day 2023 Science Campaign
 
Chief Guest: Prof. P.S.N. Rao, former Director, School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi
 
Keynote Address: Ms Beate Langset, Counsellor, Climate & Environment, Norwegian Embassy (tbc)
 
Speakers: Dr. Malti Goel, President, Climate Change Research Institute; Prof. R.K. Khandal, President, R & D and Business Development, India Glycols Limited; Dr. Saurabh Manuja, Waste Management Advisor, Cities Combatting Plastic Entering Marine Environment (CCP-ME), GiZ; Shri Gautam Sen, former Executive Director, ONGC and former Senior Vice President, Reliance; Dr. R. Venkatesan, Technical Consultant, National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), Chennai; Dr. Shyamala Mani, formerly Professor, National Institute of Urban Affairs, Delhi; Dr. Anuradha Amos, Principal, St. Thomas’ Girls Sr. Sec. School, Delhi; and Shri A.K. Jain, former Commissioner (Planning), Delhi Development Authority
 
Chair: Prof. D.P. Agrawal, Former Chairman, UPSC
 
(Collaboration: Climate Change Research Institute, New Delhi)
 

Sarveshwar ki Kavita

A discussion with Vinod Bhardwaj, Apoorvanand and Ashish Mishra

(Collaboration: The Raza Foundation)
 

'Does Contemporary Minimalist and Electronic Music have to be boring? Check it out!'

Illustrated lecture by Amb. Gautam Mukhopadhaya, former Indian Ambassador to Syria, Afghanistan and Myanmar. In the course of his life and career, he developed a taste for progressive rock and jazz, Hindustani classical and regional music, and later, South American, some strains of Western classical and religious, African, Arab, Ottoman, Iranian, and South East and East Asian music

Minimalist and electronic typically conjure up sonic images of either repetitive, unchanging, monotonous music in which nothing happens for long periods of time, inducing yawns; or loud, mechanical or 'techno' dance or rave music defined by heavy, deadening drum beats that drive one away. But the two distinct, but sometimes intriguingly related sounds are rich in experimentation and creativity, ranging from early pioneers from the fringes of jazz and world music in the 1960s, to the edges of rock in the 1970s, to the more classical work of people like John Adams, the experimental vocals of Meredith Monk and Pauline Oliveiros, the cerebral yet hypnotic works of Steve Reich, the very 'visual' and often lush and melodic music of Philip Glass using mostly acoustic instrumentation, among others