Jim Santi Owen

Last Login 01/15/12

• San Francisco, CA
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JIM SANTI OWEN
MUSIC DIRECTOR

Jim Santi Owen is an American percussionist, teacher, and performer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Drumming since the age of eight, he has been studying tabla since 1991 from Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at the Ali Akbar College of Music, at the California Institute of the Arts, and in India. Since 1995 he has been studying South Indian percussion instruments including mridangam, ghatam, kanjira and morsing from T.H. Subash Chandran and tavil from K. Sekar. At Cal Arts, Owen studied Jazz with Charlie Haden, James Newton, and Tootie Heath and African drumming and dance from the Ladzekpo Brothers. He also studies the art of accompaniment for the traditional Indian dance known as Kathak under one of its masters, Pandit Chitresh Das. Owen holds a Bachelor’s of Humanities from New College of California and a Master’s degree in World Music from California Institute of the Arts.

Owen has performed with his gurus, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Subash Chandran, and K.Sekar both in India and America. He has also performed with internationally renowned artists including: Jazz legend Pharoah Sanders, Nubian musician Hamza el Din, guitar innovator Stanley Jordan, sitar maestro, Kartik Seshadri, renowned Persian vocalist Sharam Nazeri, drumset virtuoso, Steve Smith, minimalist composer Terry Riley, Jazz saxophonist Joseph Jarman (Art Ensemble of Chicago), Israeli oud player Yair Dalal, tabla virtuoso Bikram Ghosh, kanjira exponent Ganesh Kumar, devotional singer Jai Uttal, avant-garde pianist Myra Melford, Italian percussionist Alessandra Belloni, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Burmese pot-waing player Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Cuban pianist Omar Sosa and bansuri flute exponent Steve Gorn. He has appeared on numerous recordings in America and has recorded in India with ghatam maestro T.H. Vikku Vinayakram and kanjira wizard Selva Ganesh.

In addition to working as the Music Director of the San Francisco World Music Festival since 2009, Owen also is a co-director and founder of the Indian percussion ensemble, Tabla Rasa. A dedicated teacher, Owen is on faculty at the Ali Akbar College of Music, Dominican University, the Jazz School, and LINES Ballet.

MICHAEL SANTORO
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR / FOUNDER

Michael Santoro, a musician, stage director, producer, and educator of world music, has been laying the groundwork for integrative productions like the "The Epic Project" for over a decade. Over these years, he has dedicated himself to introducing non-western music and social consciousness through innovative staged presentations, bridging the divide between professional performance art, arts education, and human rights activism. In 1995, Mr. Santoro founded and is currently Artistic Director of Door Dog Music Productions, a Bay Area non-profit organization that introduces various world musical traditions. In 2000, he co-founded the San Francisco World Music Festival, bringing master musicians from various parts of the Middle East, Asia, the Bay Area, and more. For the past decade, Mr. Santoro has been commissioned to develop original works incorporating Chinese music, dance, and innovative staging presentations, and is currently researching Nan Guan music in Taiwan and traditional operas in China.

Mr. Santoro’s stage productions include a Goldman Environmental Prize commissioned piece, “Parting At Yang Guan” (2001), which premiered at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, “Dynamic Spirit” (2002) at Palace of Fine Arts, which incorporated Chinese wushu, an original score by composer Xi Pei Kun performed by a traditional Chinese orchestra, traditional choreography, and Western staging, a “September 11”(2003) concert with over 60 musicians from different corners of the world, performing the commissioned music of Lebanese composer, Marcel Khalife, and collaborating with Kronos Quartet as part of the San Francisco World Music Festival to stage a scene from the Beijing Opera, the "Female General" (2004). Mr. Santoro was also commissioned to create the critically acclaimed "Nowruz Project" (2005), which brought together musicians, poets and filmmakers from Afghanistan, Iran, Kurdistan, and Azerbaijan in a multi-media production that incorporated fieldwork from several countries, “Voices of Kurdistan” (2006), which brought Kurdish musicians together from Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria for the first time, “Here Comes The Sea Followed By An Ocean” (2007), featuring new compositions by Azerbaijani musician, Imamyar Hasanov, and “The Reeds Give Way To The Wind” (2008), featuring master musicians from around the world specializing in instruments with reeds. In 2007, Michael staged a seven-year culminating youth project from Alice Fong Yu Alternative School called “A Journey To China: Scholars, Goddesses, Warriors”, a multi-dimensional production integrating Chinese traditional music, percussion, dance, martial arts, lion dance, brush painting, calligraphy, and documentary footage from China, which premiered at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Recently, he launched “The International Youth Music Orchestra” (2009), a multi-element professionally staged production incorporating new music performed by a global youth and master musicians from around the world. Last year, he produced “The Ritual Project: Offering | Entering the Fire | Feasting” (2010), creating an international social platform for its innovative stage productions so as to harness the power of music to challenge human nature and inspire social change, which integrates interactive live-satellite streaming from abroad for the first time.

Over the past decade, Michael has contributed to the larger arts community as an advisor and leader in the field of traditional arts. He was an adviser to the Kennedy Center for their Festival of China (2005), was a co-founder of the Green Yayla Cultural Arts Festival in the mountains of Turkey near the Black Sea, and has served on grant panels throughout the Bay Area. As musician, Michael Santoro specializes in performance of the Chinese traditional dong xiao (vertical bamboo flute).

DOOR DOG MUSIC PRODUCTIONS

Door Dog Music Productions is the producer of The San Francisco World Music Festival and the International Music Youth Orchestra. The mission of Door Dog Music Productions is to harness the power of music to challenge human nature and inspire social change. In addition to supporting and revitalizing traditional music cultures around the world, we create multi-generational, trans-cultural dialogues through our innovative staged productions, music research, documentary films, and educational resources. Our unique position within the arts field enables us to develop new strategies for promoting global synergy and the diversity of cultures around the world.