The Arohi Ensemble plays creative world music through original compositions and improvisation based on the musical traditions and concepts of India, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Jazz.

Members of Arohi play traditional and contemporary innovative instruments designed to stretch the boundaries of new world music.

Arohi means "ascending melody".

The Arohi Ensemble is Paul Z. Livingstone playing sitar, fretless 9 string and nylon string guitars, Pedro Eustache playing bansuri, flutes and world winds, Anand Bennett playing electric mandacello and contrabass, and Leonice Shinemann playing African drum set, Indian and world percussion.

Recent guest artists with the ensemble include Poovalur Srinivasan (Sriji) playing mridangam and kanjeera, and Leticia Meza on pandiero.

The Lidn Ensemble is a group of virtuoso performers and composers who perform on traditional instruments with compositions rooted in the classical reportoire (Radif) and rich mystical poetry of Persia. With the unique asset of two composing woman instrumentalists the ensemble are pioneers on many levels demonstrating through their music and message that culture, sex and faith have no barriers.

The Lidn Ensemble's core members feature Houman Pourmehdi playing tonbak & daf (traditional percussion) and ney (Persian reed pipe), Mahshid Mirzadeh playing santur (Persian dulcimer), Pirayeh Pourafar playing tar, setar, & robab (Persian plucked strings) and vocalist Siamak Shajarian. Additional members of Lidn Ensemble join in a larger ensemble playing creative world music blending contemporary Persian music with Indian, jazz and other diverse world traditions and features David Johnson on marimba, Paul Livingstone on sitar & fretless guitar, Pedro Eustache on flute and reeds and Miroslav Tadic on guitar.

Since that time Paul has been performing and been recording playing sitar, fretless, classical guitars and requinto with the Lidn Ensemble in many collaborative concerts. The most recent performance on Christmas Eve 2002, as part of the 'Holiday Celebration' at the Music Center's Dorthy Chandler Pavilion in Downtown Los Angeles was broadcast live on PBS television.

Mala Ganguly's 'Raga Mala Ensemble' in perforomance at Grand Performances, downtown Los Angeles.

Tumbafé
(pronounced toom-bah-fay)

Tumbafé is a diverse quartet of musicians from West Africa, South India and the US. Because of their close work together as performers and teachers at the Sangeet School of World Music & Dance, and also as participants in shared events of the World Festival of Sacred Music, these musicians discovered an opportunity for a creative new ensemble bridging African and Indian music. Using traditional African and Indian stringed instruments and drums, the music of Tumbafé demonstrates the universality of music in the face of these seemingly disparate cultures.

This groundbreaking ensemble may well be the only one of its kind in the world, blending the rich melodic sounds of kora - the main traditional melodic instrument of West Africa, and the subtle beauty of the sitar - the most popular classical stringed instrument of North India. The mridangam - the rigorous and complex barrel drum of South India and talking drum from West Africa provide the rhythmic base for the group.

The results in performance have been inspiring, for the musicians as well as anyone who has heard this excitingly new, yet warmly familiar music. Gourds, which comprise the essential resonating bodies of both the kora and the sitar, are called tumba in India and fe in Guinea. Tumba is also a word for "drum" in much of the African Diaspora, and fe also means "faith" in Spanish. Together they create "Tumbafé".

Tumbafé is Prince Diabate, kora player, vocalist and master griot musician from Guinea, West Africa, Poovalur V. Sriji, master mridangam player from South India, and from the US, Paul Z. Livingstone playing sitar and MJ Greenberg on West African percussion.