The Road to Samarkand

Jadu played at Sharq Taronalari International Music Festival in August 2011. They performed in Registan Square, surely the most beautiful site for a Festival, the towering walls of the three madrassahs decorated with intricate mosaics, the excellent light projections swirling and pulsing, creating rainbows of colour, the sheer magnificence of this ancient setting. Their music was very well received, they played SOHINI, and some of the audience commented later,  'It should be called Caravanserai, I saw camels crossing the desert as they played.' 'No no, it should be Maha Ganga, there were elephants!'

Jadu also played concerts at two regional venues, along with musicians from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Senegal, and Ireland. There were wonderful jamming sessions on the hotel terrace every night, often continuing until dawn. On our first night in Samarkand we met Maria Pomianowska, the Artistic Director of the Warsaw Cross Cultural Festval. Maria is an amazing and very talented woman, she studied Sarangi in India, and has pioneered the reconstruction of medieval Polish instruments. We met her at dinner and within an hour she was playing with JADU on the hotel terrace. Then the Georgian choir ( six very macho guys with great voices and nimble feet) delighted us all with an accapella song. The night culminated with a tiny Israeli woman playing powerful drum, and the Uzbeki dancing girls showing us their (very cool)moves.

Jadu have been invited to play in India and Afghanistan in 2012. Michal Shapiro has produced a brilliant video of JADU and written about them on her blog on www.linktv.org/worldmusic/blog . See the link to the video on YOUTUBE below