Category Archives Press

“Unity in Diversity” – A Harmony of Sounds

WTV Channel 44 (Screening of documentary)

Repeat Screening Monday 22/6/2015 @ 8pm

Two of Perth’s living musical treasures Arthur Gracias from India and Tam Thai from Vietnam tell us their life stories and then join together in a jam session with their nationally distinctive guitars, creating a harmony in sound. They along with our many migrants have made Australia a culturally richer place.

Music Director, Composer and Arranger – Arthur Gracias

Directed – Guido Negro and Peter Jefferey

Produced – Peter Jefferey (OAM)

Indian Kulcha

8:00PM FRIDAY 11TH OCT 2013
FEATURING ARTHUR GRACIAS, GURPREET SINGH AND DANCING FROM THE TEMPLE OF FINE ARTS

Arthur at Kulcha

A delicious treat to open the season, featuring Perth’s finest exponents of Indian music and dance. Tabla maestro Gurpreet Singh, one of Australia’s best Indian percussionists, opens the evening, with a graceful Indian dancer from the Temple of Fine Arts. Our headliner is Arthur Gracias, world-renowned godfather of Indo-jazz. He and his quartet create a sophisticated blend of complex Indian ragas and rhythms with contemporary jazz stylings.

Come early for delicious Indian food on the Kulcha balcony before the show.

MEMBERS: $15, PRESALE: $20, DOOR: $25

Book at Kulcha: http://kulcha.com.au/event/indian-kulcha/

Music Mania

The Telegraph
Culcutta, India

It was yesterday once more at Ho Chi Minh Sarani last week. And the blast from the past came in the form of Arthur Gracias. The Indo-jazz composer, guitarist and pianist was in Calcutta to take part in an evening of fusion music blending the East and the West at the Satyajit Ray Auditorium. Old-timers will remember Gracias as a part of the pantheon of rock, jazz and blues artistes that included Joe Pereira, Pam Crain, Louis Banks and Usha Uthup and rocked the city in the 60s and the 70s. Gracias, now based in Australia, also composed music for such critically acclaimed films as Gudia and Dekha. “Gracias performed at a proper concert in Calcutta after 15 long years. Our idea was to bring back Park Street as it was in the days of yore,” says Santanu Ghosh, who organised the concert along with filmmaker Goutam Ghose. Incidentally, Ghose’s son Ishaan, a percussionist, also made his musical debut at the concert. Clearly, age was no bar in the nostalgia fest.

And now you has Indo-jazz

West Australian Indojazz Review

The West Australian, Stephen Bevis

4 September 2006

Not many Musicians can claim to have invented a new genre.

Arthur Gracias has not only done that, he has created his own instrument to play it on.

The guitarist, keyboardist and composer has built an international reputation as the originator of Indo-jazz – a fusion of contemporary Indian raga and jazz.

Born in India but now living in Perth, Gracias has scored music for award-winning Indian films Yatria, Gudia, Beyond the Himalayas, Patang and Dekha, and has performed with Herbie Hancock, Gunther Klatt and Steve lacy.

In concert, his fingers fluently negotiate a twin-necked 18-string instrument based on a 1940’s Harmony Archtop guitar with an added 12-string Indian-style fingerboard turned to give a sitar-sounding shimmer.

The old Harmony guitar belonged to his uncle and Gracias learnt to play on it from the age of four.

“It is of immense sentimental value to me,” he says.  His Indo-jazz Archtop will be the centre piece of his performance to launch his CD, Night Raga, with his three-piece band called, fittingly enough, Indojazz, for the Perth Jazz Society tonight.

Gracias, who moved to Perth four years ago but tours regularly in India and Europe, formed Indojazz with Manoli Vouyoucalos on bass and Mohan Sathyanath on traditional Indian instruments mridangam, ghatam and ganjira in 2003.

They will also perform music from the gypsy musical migration from North India to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Spain and North Africa.