Percussion Concert with Christoph Haberer, Karthik Mani and Mrs. R. A. Ramamani September 29, 2011

Information on the Artist(s)
Christoph Haberer

Christoph Haberer, drummer and percussionist – or in the vernacular of his southern German "Alemannic" dialect, the "Drümmele Maa" (the drumming man) – is furthermore a composer, and a live and studio electronics expert.

Born in 1951 in Donaueschingen (Germany) he has performed with renowned jazz artists such as Lee Konitz, Benny Bailey, and James Newton. In many projects he worked along with percussionists of various styles such as Dou Dou N’daye Rose, Trilok Gurtu, Carlo Rizzo, and Robin Schulkowsky.

In the early 1980s, Christoph Haberer founded his ´Drümmele Maa´ formation and had his first encounter with electronic equipment, which laid the foundations for his own creations and compositions.

On behalf of the Goethe-Institut, Haberer has been on numerous concert tours in Africa, India, Southern Europe, North America, Scandinavia and China. He has initiated and participated in various international projects such as the percussion highlight ”On the outer edges of Europe” for and in Weimar – European Cultural Capital in 1999, the project with the African drummers of ”Elima” and the ”Kölner Saxophon Mafia” at JazzFest Berlin, or as ´Maître de Tambours´ with ”Transe Express” at the Hanover EXPO.

Haberer’s unique combination of computer-aided/live-triggered electronics and virtuoso percussion performance has enabled him to excel as a soloist at 'The Cologne Triennial', the Jazz Festival in Montreal, the European Broadcast Union in Helsinki, the "Deutschland-Promenade" in Guangzhou (China).

Famous Projects:

Solo project - POLYRITMIA (2011)

POLYRITMIA – a solo project in which Christoph Haberer performs (again) live on stage with acoustic drums and electronic percussion, with synthesizers and samplers.

Solo project - T R O M M E L Z E I T (2008)

The key note underlying this solo project is the conscious juxtaposition of sound patterns created by acoustic and electronic drumming.

Whilst playing the acoustic instruments, Haberer simultaneously operated all the electronic sounds, e.g. bass and marimba runs are integrated into his drum playing, cascades of electronic sounds are mixed with “natural cymbals”, loops are activated in the playing process and so on.

Karthik Mani

Karthik Mani hails from a family of musicians – his father, T.A.S. Mani is a renowned percussionist of "The Karnataka College of Percussion", and his mother R.A.Ramamani is a reputed ground breaking Carnatic vocalist who has performed all over the world and has pioneered the genre of Carnatic-jazz fusion. Karthik is a young and energetic percussionist and drummer with a solid foundation in South Indian Classical Music, who now follows in his father's footsteps. He shares a passion for drumming and has been playing since the age of five. He started learning both Vocal and Mridangam at a very early age. After a few years he showed more interest in Mridangam and other Percussion Instruments. At the age of 13 he had got the 3rd rank in the Karnataka State Junior Mridangam Examination.

He has performed in various prestigious festivals in India, China, Spain, Germany, USA, Turkey, Bangkok, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Indonesia and Australia. He got appreciations from the musicians and the audience there. He has performed with musicians like, Carnatic maestro Mandolin U. Sreenivas, Carnatic flute Maestro N. Ramani, Guruvayoor Dorai, Shrimunshum Rajarao, Violinist Mysore Manjunath, Praveen Godkhindi ,Anoor Ananthakrishna Sharma, Sitarist Ravi Chary ,Pt Vijay Ghate, Louis banks, Karl peters, Keith Peters, Amith Heri, Ranjit Barot,, Ronan Guilfoyle, Zoltan Lantos, Okay Temiz, Ramesh Shotham, Mike Herting, African singer Mory Kante, Tunisian singer Dhafer Yousuf, Afro-Cuban percussionist Mokhtar Samba, Japanese guitarist Paul Shigihara, Lucas Niggli, Trombonist Nils Wogram, Philip Shaufberger, to name a few. He has performed shows all over India with various renowned Carnatic and Hindustani musicians.

For the past few years, he has been a part of internationally-renowned Carnatic percussion ensemble "TALA TARANGINI" (of the Karnataka College of Percussion), Laya Lahiri, Vrushti, Laya Taranga,and Laya Milana. He was also the Indian Percussionist for the Band "ARYA" founded by the famous vocalist Vasundhara Das. He had been privileged in playing for an album with the internationally renowned Jazz legend Saxophonist "Charlie Mariano” for the album "Om Keshav" which was a huge success worldwide.

He has been performing concerts throughout India as well as abroad and has performed in various International Music Festivals.”Bangkok Jazz festival”, "La Marde Musicas", "Kispiox Valley Festival", "Islands Folk Festival",”Pacific Rim Festival” "Harrison Festival of the Arts", "Pacific Rim Summer Festival", “Java Jazz Festival”, “Delhi International Arts Festival”, “Ruhr Triennale” are some of the festivals where he has performed and received huge accolades from the audiences and the musicians there.

Currently he is the highly-acclaimed percussionist of the Indo-Canadian band "Lehera". He is the first Indian percussionist to win the “Independent World Music Award” for World Fusion with “Lehera”. He has toured with the renowned percussion group “The Family of Percussion” with Peter Giger. He has also played with the legendary DJ Cheb-i-sabbah and also toured with Canadian DJ Adam Sheikh. He has been a part of bands like Zoom, Swiss Indian orchestra, Sarah Bey project, Raghu Dixit Project, Moonarra, Prakash Sontakke Group, Esperanto and Shoonya, Mystik Vibes to name a few and has two bands of his own – “The Karthik Mani Group” and “Taalization”.

Keen to take his music to new and unexplored spaces, Karthik is now experimenting with both dance and quasi-theatre. As part of a percussion ensemble, he recently accompanied outstanding German choreographer Sasha Waltz (Sasha Waltz & Guests will present Dialogue 12 in Delhi and Kolkata, under the banner: Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities) and her troupe at a performance in Bengaluru. He has composed and played 'themed percussion' as part of a musical production called 'Bengaluru!' - a lively 45-minute show on the history of the city. Recently he has worked with dancer Rukmini Vijaykumar on her project 'Megham' , a dance and drums duet called 'Monologue' and also with renowned photographer Waseem Khan.

Mrs. R. A. Ramamani

She is an outstanding vocalist, a much sought after performing artist, a demanding teacher and a brilliant composer. Blessed with a rich and mellifluous voice she sings with spontaneity and mastery over rhythm and melody. She specialises in vocal improvisations, complex rhythmic patterns and in Konnakol the traditional percussion language. She is a rare artist who has achieved the distinction of presenting a composition simultaneously set to two different rhythmic cycles. She has boldly experimented with the Western forms of music and has composed several melodic and rhythmic experimental pieces. She is the first Carnatic vocalist to have performed with national and international jazz bands.

The Karnataka Gana Kala Parishat conferred Ramamani with the award Ganakalashree. She is also the recipient of a number of awards which includes the Gayana Laya Samrat and Kala Tapasvi. Ramamani and T.A.S. Mani have performed with leading artists of western music at major international festivals. Together they have conducted many music workshops in different parts of the world.