Pandit Samir Chatterjee is a virtuoso Tabla player of India. He travels widely across the world throughout the year performing in numerous festivals as a soloist or with other outstanding musicians from both Indian and western traditions. His compositions are widely acclaimed as well as his writings.

Pandit Chatterjee began his studies early with Pandit Bankim Ghosh, Pandit Balaram Mukherjee, Pandit Rathin Dhar and Mohammad Salim. His later formation as a musician occurred under the guidance of Pandit Amalesh Chatterjee (since 1966) and Pandit Shyamal Bose (since 1984). All of Samir's teachers have been from the Farrukhabad Gharana (school) of Tabla-playing, which he now represents.

All India Radio maintains Pandit Chatterjee as an A-rated artist. He can be heard on numerous recordings featuring as soloist, accompanying many of India's greatest musicians and in collaboration with western musicians of outstanding caliber. In concert Pandit Chatterjee has accompanied many of India's greatest musicians including Pt. Ravi Shankar, Ud. Vilayat Khan, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Jasraj, Pt. Nikhil Banerjee, Pt. V.G. Jog, Pt . Shivkumar Sharma, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pt. Brij Bhusan Kabra, M. S. Gopalakrishnan, Ud. Amjad Ali Khan, Ud. Salamat Ali Khan, Ud. Sultan Khan, Ud. Munawar Ali Khan, Smt. Lakshmi Shankar, Smt. Prabha Atre, Pt. Gour Goswami, Pt. Vijay Raghav Rao, Pt. G. S. Sachdev, Pt. Raghunath Seth, Ud. Bahadur Khan, Pt. Shyam Ganguly, Pt. Budhhadev Dasgupta, Pt. Manilal Nag, Ud. Ashis Khan, Shujat Khan, Ajoy Chakraborty, Rashid Khan, Tejendra Narayan Mazumdar, Debashish Bhattacharya, to name only a few.

Pandit Samir Chatterjee lives in New York, where he has become a catalyst in the fusion of Indian and Western music, performing with Pauline Oliveros, Ravi Coltrane, Dave Douglas, Myra Melford, Steve Gorn, Glen Velez, Boby Sanabria, Ben Verdery, William Parker, Dance Theater of Harlem, Ethos Percussion group, Da Capo Chamber Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva and other jazz and avant guard musicians. He is a member of jazz trios, SYNC with Ned Rothenberg and Jerome Harris and MANODHARMA with Rudresh Mahanthappa and Vijay Iyer. He is the composer and director of Nacho Nacho - Gypsy Storyteller and Chhand-Anand, World percussion Ensemble. He performs with Sanjay Mishra on his CD " Blue Incantation " featuring Jerry Garcia as guest artist.

Pandit Samir Chatterjee has been teaching for the last 25 years and many of his students are established performers. He is the Founder-Director of CHHANDAYAN, an organization dedicated to promoting and preserving Indian music and culture by conducting classes and workshops, organizing concerts, maintaining a library and running a store.

Pandit Samir Chatterjee has also a career as a musicologist and journalist, contributing to many different newspapers and periodicals. He won gold medal for his proficiency in a musical examination (equivalent to B.Mus.). He has two master degrees to his credit, in English and History.

David Ellenbogen is musician, composer, producer and educator. As a guitarist and vocalist he has performed in The Kingdom of Tonga, Ghana, Australia, Thailand, India, and at home in New York City.

He has jammed, recorded and/or performed with Debashish Bhattacharya (World's Greatest Slide Guitarist), Jimmy Norman (Bob Marley, The Coasters, Jimi Hendrix, composer of "Time is on my Side"), Grammy award winner Richard Joseph, Kenny Wessel (Ornette Coleman) and many others.

Performing with various bands in college, Dave discovered another outlet to share his love of music and became a DJ at WKCR, NY, WHRW, Binghamton, and Radio Universe in Accra, Ghana. Dave spent a semester at the University of Ghana studying African Percussion, Philosophy and traveling. He also studied with one of the kings of highlife guitar, T.O. Jazz.

After earning a masters degree at Columbia University, Dave was lured by the Center for Jazz Studies that professor Robert O'Meally was forming and eventually became Programs Director, producing their lecture and concert series with artists like Cyrus Chestnut and Bernice Regan. With Yale professor John Szwed, Dave produced the Blue Evolution series, which featured the John Coltrane inspired Double Duo (Ravi Coltrane, Rashied Ali, Mixashawn and Pheroan akLaff), Greg Osby, Jason Moran, Vijay Iyer, Steve Bernstein and many others. The success of this series caught the eye of legendary producer George Wein, whose achievements include creating the Newport Jazz Festival (in 1954) and New Orleans Jazz Heritage Festival.

David soon joined Wein and his company Festival Productions, Inc. He became the Associate Producer of the 2001 JVC Jazz Festival - Miami Beach and the 2001 JVC Jazz Festival - Toronto and worked on dozens of other festivals nationally and internationally. At this time David independently produced the first Sun Ra Arkestra Halloween Haunt, an event that continues to this day.

After a few years at Festival Productions, David left NYC to study and record music in various places across the globe. He studied gamelan in Bali, learned the folk music of Samoa, and performed mean blues in Thailand but his studies were most influential and intensive in Calcutta, where he studied Raga on the Slide Guitar with guru Debashish Bhattacharya. Debashish, brother (tabla maestro) Subashish and Dave formed a life-long friendship and recorded an album's worth of material in India, called The Kolkata Sessions, with vocalist Ariel Dison. David also helped out in the studio as Debashish recorded the best-selling world album 3: Calcutta Slide Guitar, and wrote the liner notes to that album.

Today David is busy teaching, composing, performing and recording. His groups include the Uptown Sound, Terraplane, and Mood Indigo. Always looking forward to the next jam and the next adventure...the future is as limitless as music itself.

For more info check Davidellenbogen.com

Vladimir Katz is a New York City based pianist, composer and educator.

At age 6 Vladimir began his studies of classical music in Moscow. After moving to Israel at age 13, he received training from the Israel Arts & Science Academy in Jerusalem, studying composition under Prof. Hajdu and Michael Wolpe, ear training and theory under Dr. Batsheva Rubinstein and classical piano (under F. Aisenberg and Dr.Berkovich) .

During this period he developed a passion for improvisation and jazz piano. By age 15 he was gigging around Israel with jazz legend Arnie Lawrence with whom he performed in such events as the 1998 Israel Festival and the Gershwin Centennial.

In 2001, Vladamir's love of Jazz brought him to New York to study with Kenny Barron. Since then he has studied and performed with Kirk Nurock, Sheila Jordan, Joe Chambers and many others.

Katz's musicianship has been recognized and he received the Israeli Young Artist Award in 1999 and a scholarship from the Shelly Berg Family Foundation in (2002-2003). Currently he is a recipient of the Performing Excellence Scholarship at New School University (2003-present) where he will receive his degree in music this year.