Lenny Seidman
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Lenny Seidman(musician) (b. in Philadelphia, PA) is a tabla musician/composer and World Music and Jazz curator at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia.
He began studying tabla in 1971 with Ishwarlal Misra, followed by Chotelal Misra and Kiran Deshponde, all from Benares, India. Previously he had been a student of classical and jazz piano. During the 1980s, he integrated analogue electronic music with his percussion, composing pieces for dance companies and his various music ensembles and began a ten year musical relationship, studying the South Indian rhythm system and performing with South Indian violinist Adrian L’Armand. He began studying with renowned percussionist Zakir Hussain in 1991 and subsequently directed his performing focus to tabla and his composing for inter-cultural percussion ensembles incorporating North and South Indian drumming traditions.
He is co-director of Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra, director of the Lenny Seidman Tabla Choir, and is an original member of Atzilut, the Middle Eastern Jewish/Arabic music ensemble noted for their "Concerts for Peace" performed at the United Nations, throughout the U.S. and Europe. He is currently on an international tour with Rennie Harris PureMovement's new piece, "Facing Mekka" as a musical collaborator and performer. He has founded and coordinated several other ensembles including the Shamanistics and Splinter Group. He has performed throughout the Americas and abroad with numerous music artists including Zakir Hussain, Kenny Endo, Simon Shaheen, Philip Hamilton, Yacouba Sissoko, Kenny Muhammed, Michael Daugherty, I Dewa Puta Berata, Butch Morris, Yair Dalal, Ursula Rucker, and choreographers Rennie Harris, Helmut Gottschild, Roko Kawai, Christine Cox, Nina Martin, Benoit LaChambre, Myra Bazell, Eko Supriyanto, Cheng-Chieh Yu, Ananya Chatterjea, Pallabi Chakravorty, Kim Arrow and Group Motion Dance Co.
Lenny has received two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships and an Independence Foundation Fellowship for creative work. He was co-recipient of an NEA grant and two Rockefeller Foundation MAP Fund grants to create new work for Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra. He was commissioned by Phrenic New Ballet to compose a new piece for choreographer Christine Cox's "Tabula Rasa" and by Kim Arrow for his "Quasimodo in the Outback". He was awarded the APPEX Fellowship in 1999, a six week inter-cultural residency at UCLA to collaborate and live with 35 performing artists from throughout Asia where his works were performed. He also was awarded a three month residency at Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA. in 1993. He has been a guest artist and tabla instructor at Swarthmore College since 1998, where he created several compositions for tabla/gamelan and tabla/taiko ensembles and co-directed their performances. Lenny has given workshops nationally, teaches tabla and rhythm theory privately and is the World Music and Jazz curator at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia.
[edit] Compositions
“Tal of the Wild”… Commissioned by the Independence Foundation. "Tal" (or tala) refers to the rhythmic system in Indian music; "of the Wild" from Jack London 's "Call of the Wild". This piece is inspired by the representation of the way different animals run, and features theme and variations of a phrase played at 4 to the beat and 7 to the beat . "Tal of the Wild" is part of Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra's repertory, and has also been performed by the APPEX Percussion Ensemble at the Japan/American Theatre in Los Angeles.
"Mudra Hang ”… Commissioned by choreographer Kim Arrow for his multimedia work, "Quasimodo in the Outback". Composed for the tabla choir, this suite collaborates with both live and animated dance.
“Dha Funk” … Inspired by the work of South Indian violin master, L.Shankar, this 19 beat cycle gets tongue-in-cheek treatment in a call and response recitation of the tabla drum strokes. "Dha Funk" is part of Spoken Hand's repertory.
“Skinful”… This Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra repertory piece in a cycle of 16 beats merges both North Indian (Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic) rhythmic concepts and features a Carnatic style of melodic instrument/drum interplay. "Skinful" was also performed by the APPEX Percussion Ensemble at UCLA.
"Haitian Taiko"…Composed for tabla and Swarthmore College's Taiko Ensemble. The primary rhythmic theme was inspired by an Afro/Haitian rhythm, developed for the tabla choir.
"Batu-Batu Tukene"…Composed for tabla and Swarthmore College's Balinese Gamelan ensemble, Semara Santi. Batu-Batu denotes a quick repetitive drum pattern that supports a fast passage in a gamelan composition, and tukene is a 3 count tabla phrase. This piece merges both traditions in a contemporary format, set to a 6 beat cycle in a main subdivision of 9-7-5-3.
"Dha Terekita Cak" …Composed for tabla and Semara Santi Gamelan Ensemble, this piece features the rhythmic recitation practices from the Balinese gamelan and North/South Indian drumming traditions conversing with each other.
"Tabula Rasa"…Commissioned by Phrenic New Ballet. This piece was composed for choreographer, Christine Cox. It is a recording studio suite consisting of multi track tabla layers of various pitches with an abstract electronic music section.
“Meet Mr. R” ... A 75 minute solo piece performed by Seidman for tabla and frame drum approximately 12 times during 1994 and 1995 for Helmut Gottschild’s “Meet Mr. R” performed at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, Allegheny College, Meadeville PA, University of the Arts Theater, Philadelphia PA, Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia PA.
