This November we celebrated Diwali, The Festival of Lights at Colchester Arts Centre. Global Village presented a magical and enchanting evening of classical Indian percussion, bringing together the talents of Gurdain Rayatt on Tabla and Jonathan Mayer on Sitar.

This event was jointly programmed by Colchester Arts Centre and Essex Cultural Diversity Project, as part of our Global Village Presents series, and was supported by Colchester City Council’s Cultural and Creative Events Fund.

Global Village events take place across the East of England, and celebrate music, song, performance and dance by artists from around the world, bringing diverse communities together within a vibrant festival setting. Global Village Presents is a series of one-off events with key partners in venues across the region, to test audience’s appetites for world music and performance and create a platform for diverse talent.

Diwali 2024 at Colchester Arts Centre

The evening concert was part of a day of activities at Colchester Arts Centre, celebrating Diwali, the Festival of Lights. Organised by Jaymini Bedia. Featuring performances by Team Nrithya, Ankita Aggarwal, Maya Watling, Mellora Ismail, Kritika Sharma, Sudeep Sharma, Flytoez Dance Company. There was also henna by Pinky Moonflower Mehndi. People also took part in the Diwali Light Dance and got into the disco spirit with Jaymini’s Bollywood Dance. We enjoyed food from Yak and Yeti Nepalese restaurant in Colchester.

About the artists

Gurdain Rayatt is one of the leading tabla players in the UK today. Classically trained from the age of 3 by his father and grandfather, Gurdain became a disciple of late Pandit Shankar Ghosh of the Farukhabad Gharana and is now a disciple of Pandit Yogesh Samsi. He has been fortunate enough to perform alongside the greats of the Hindustani music tradition including Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pandit Birju Maharaj, Ustad Shahid Parvez, Rakesh Chaurasia, Niladri Kumar and Purbayan Chatterjee to name a few. Outside the classical field, he performs with world and cross-cultural musical genres in Kefaya, Songlines Winners in 2017 and 2020, blues slide guitar trio (Michael Messer’s Mitra) and jazz funk band Shez Raja and has collaborated with a range of music genres including folk and Brazilian, Spanish, African music and electronica and dance. He has performed many times at Darbar Festival and on numerous occasions at the famous WOMAD Festival and prestigious venues such as the Southbank Centre and Royal Albert Hall. Gurdain is a dedicated tabla teacher to many students online and in person through private lessons, workshops, lecture demonstrations and the Chakardar Annual Tabla Retreat.

gurdain.com | facebook.com/gurdaintabla |x.com/gurdain | instagram.com/gurdain | youtube.com/gurdain

Son of the late Kolkata composer John Mayer, Jonathan Mayer began his musical training at the early age of 5 with Violin, Piano & Composition. He started his initial training under the western sitarist Clem Alford who was a disciple of Sachindra Nath Saha, Senia Gharana. Later he studied Imdadkhani Gharana technical proficiency under Ustad Wajahat Khan for a short while and then Senia Veen-kar Gharana under the extremely knowledgeable maestro the late Pandit Subroto Roychowdhury and finally under Ustad Irfan Muhammed Khan. Jonathan Mayer studied composition from his father who studied violin with Phillipe Sandre in Calcutta, music theory with Melhi Mehta in Bombay, Indian theory with Sanathan Mukerjee and composition from Matyas Sether. Jonathan later studied composition from Andrew Downes at the Birmingham Conservatoire where he gained a B.Mus (Hons) at the Birmingham Conservatoire studying both sitar and composition. Because of his ability to read western notation he has performed in a variety of genres and so far his career has seen him play with artists such as Dave Stewart, The Bingham String Quartet, Kathryn Tickell, Kumar Bose, Kuljit Bhamra, Erich Gruenburg, Rohan De Sarem, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra, Kenny Wheeler, The Orlando Consort, John Wilson, Bombay Dub Orchestra, Future Sounds of London, Sarah Brightman, I Musici Fiamminghi Orchestra, and Sir Paul McCartney.

jonathanmayer.co.uk | facebook.com/MayerSitar | x.com/JonnySitar | Jonathan Mayer on youtube.com | Jonathan Mayer on Spotify