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Tabla player Ritesh Das has been studying, teaching and composing since the early 1970’s.
After a full career as performers in the famed dance troupe of Uday Shankar (elder brother of Pandit Ravi Shankar), Ritesh’s parents established Nritya Bharati, the first government recognized music & dance institution of independent India in Kolkata. This excellent teaching facility continues today under the guidance of Ritesh’s brother, renowned Kathak dancer Pandit Chitresh Das.
Ritesh began studying tabla in Kolkata with Pandit Shankar Ghosh in 1971, and
in 1979, he immigrated to the United States to perform with the AMAN Folk Ensemble, in Los Angeles California. He continued his tabla study under Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, at the Ali Akbar College of Music, developing a relationship that continues to this day.
In 1987, he moved to Toronto, where he began teaching tabla on a full time basis, and formed the Toronto Tabla Ensemble in 1991.
Playing to sold out audiences since then, The Toronto Tabla Ensemble as an influential voice in Canadian music, brings together the North Indian percussive tradition of Tabla, with some of Canada’s best music and dance groups. Staying true to form, content and feeling, the TTE moves what is traditionally a solo instrument to an unparalleled level of ensemble work.
The intricate rhythms and abundant tonal variations possible on the tabla combine to make it one of the most expressive of all percussion instruments. Add to this the versatility of mallets, percussion, voice, bass and dance, and you have what the Ensemble is all about.
The Ensemble has maintained a strong home season presence in Toronto, since 1991, and has toured Canada six times, performing at all of Canada’s best folk, jazz and art festivals. In 2006 they toured Australia with Jeff Martin’s (formerly of the Tea Party) solo project. The TTE have appeared nationally and internationally on Bravo!, CBC News World and Much Music. Their original music has been used in numerous films and commercials, and in 2003 the TTE was commissioned to create the current theme music for the CBC RADIO 1’s daily morning show Metro Morning.
The M-DO Toronto Tabla Ensemble Center for World Music is located at 777 Bloor Street West (Bickford centre). In an atmosphere of creative focus, Artistic Director Ritesh Das continues to train some of Canada’s finest musicians in the rigorous pedagogy of North Indian classical music, while embracing a 21st century world view. |
