Forthcoming music concert in Delhi

Delhi-ites will have an opportunity to hear musicians from the nationally known Woodstock School music department on March 31, when the school's jazz band and chamber choir are joined by the staff string quartet and student and faculty Indian classical performers for a concert at the Akshara Theatre. Well-known theatre personalities Gopal Sharman and Jalabala Vaidya, founder-directors of the Akshara Theatre, have given Woodstock students use of their theatre as part of their commitment to promoting the performing arts among young people through Diksha, their programme of classical training for children.More than 40 musicians from the school, located in Mussoorie, will perform music ranging from a jazz interpretation of the late James Brown's classic rhythm and blues roof-raiser "I Got You" to the ever-popular evening raga "Jhinjhoti."

The chamber choir will show its virtuosity with a set including a choral setting of the World War I poem "In Flanders Field" and a medley honoring the "Queen of Soul," Aretha Franklin. The string quartet's offering is the first movement of an original work by Zingrin Shishak, a member of the school's music faculty. Mr Shishak, born in Assam and brought up in Nagaland, is a graduate of Woodstock. The school's classical Indian musicians will also perform a second evening raga, "Tilahhamod." The Indian music program is headed by Aloke Kumar Maiti, a fourth- generation shisya of his guru, who is in turn a disciple of West Bengal's renowned Pandit Manilal Nag.

Centrepiece of the evening will be an extended set by the school's jazz band that will include everything from bossa nova ("Mas Que Nada") to the Billy Strayhorn/Duke Ellington/Johnny Mercer classic "Fly Me To The Moon," most famously recorded by Frank Sinatra.

Woodstock School's music department has a long tradition of producing professional musicians of international reputation, including Emmy-winning composer Charlene Chitamber Connell and the recently retired director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Vance George.

Woodstock musicians are no strangers to Delhi; in the past they have played in locations as diverse as the Habitat Centre, Vasant Valley School, St. Stephens College and the Hungarian Cultural Centre. "Jazz & More" will be the school's first concert at the Akshara Theatre, and it promises to be an excellent venue. David Hugg, head of the Music Department and director of the jazz band, says: "The stage, the seating, the shade of old trees - this amphitheatre has the perfect ambience for a night of great music".

The programme commences at 7:30 p.m. The Akshara Theatre is located on Baba Kharak Singh Road, New Delhi. For invitations or more information, email Monica Roberts, Woodstock School.