Sandeep Das

Sandeep Das is a tabla player appearing as soloist with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra in a season finale concert. He performs Dinuk Wijeratne's Tabla Concerto, a work that pairs the hand drum's rapid, layered rhythms with a full orchestra, alongside music by Margaret Bonds and Tchaikovsky.

Listeners should expect the tabla itself to be the main event: a pair of small hand drums played with fingertips and palms, capable of sliding pitches and machine gun fast patterns within a single beat. In Wijeratne's Tabla Concerto, the soloist typically trades short rhythmic phrases with the orchestra, building from spoken sounding syllables that tabla players use to teach and count rhythm into full ensemble passages. Expect call and response between the drums and strings or winds, with the orchestra sometimes imitating the drum's clipped attacks. The rest of the program offers contrast, Margaret Bonds's Montgomery Variations opening with a hymn like "Prayer Meeting," and Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony closing the evening with a broad, brass driven arc from a somber opening theme to a triumphant finish.