La MaMa Kids Online: Raga Kids
Featuring Neel Murgai
Performing original songs combining Indian classical melodies with American folk and blues song forms, Raga Kids has been a mainstay of family friendly music in Brooklyn for 8 years. In addition to their regular singalong classes they have performed at BAMKids, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Philadelphia Please Touch Museum, Asia Society and the Brooklyn Public Library. Since quarantine times, Neel has begun solo classes online, playing sitar, guitar, percussion and singing, while spicing the class up with video effects and the occasional magic trick.
“Timed for after school viewing!”
Special thanks to The Jim Henson Foundation for supporting our online puppetry programming.
Neel Murgai is a sitarist, overtone singer, daf player, composer and teacher from Brooklyn, NY. He is a co-founder and co-artistic director of the Indian music collective, Brooklyn Raga Massive. Neel has studied sitar for 25 years, currently with his guru Pundit Krishna Bhatt. Overtone singing Neel learned from Batuvshin of the Buriyat performance group Uragsha and from Timothy Hill of the Harmonic Choir. He is a graduate of Goddard College’s MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts program. His first album with Neel Murgai Ensemble was released on Innova Records in 2010. Neel has performed around the world with numerous artists from varying disciplines including, Bill T. Jones, Cyndi Lauper, Wyclef Jean, Andre DeShields, Karsh Kale, Vijay Iyer, Adam Rudolph, Daniel Bernard Romain, Dana Leong, Ellen Stewart, Laraaji, Yuerba Buena, Baba Israel, Raz Mesinai, Mission on Mars, Akim Funk Buddha, Loren Conners, Suzanne Langile, Louis Bellogenis and Cosmo Vinyl. He has performed at venues ranging from the Lincoln Center and Kennedy Center to Late Night with David Letterman to jazz clubs such as the Blue Note and at festivals around the U.S. Neel played in the orchestra for Disney’s musical theater adaptation of “The Jungle Book” directed by Mary Zimmerman. Neel has composed music for many film, TV, video, theater and dance projects including the features, “The Yes Men Fix the World”, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and “A Decent Arrangement” starring Shabana Azmi. http://neelmurgai.com
Online Happenings
Presented by La MaMa and CultureHub, La MaMa is exploring ways to respond creatively to a situation that is potentially changing how we gather as a community in our theatres. La MaMa is working with CultureHub to provide online streaming of select productions and events on Howlround Theatre Commons.
La MaMa Kids
La MaMa Kids Online presents kids performances and hands-on workshops online, timed especially for “after school” viewing! La MaMa will continue to use emerging technologies to create a new venue for artistic expression that questions how art can function and how we as a society can survive challenging periods of history.