Zakir Hussain is an Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer.
Hussain was a child prodigy, and was touring by the age of twelve. He went to the United States in 1970, beginning his international career which includes more than 150 concert dates a year. In 1973, he appeared on George Harrison’s Living in the Material World album. He has received universal acclaim as a composer.
Hussain is a founding member of Bill Laswell’s ‘World Music Supergroup’ Tabla Beat Science.
Hussain participates in the Silk Road collaborative musical project. He teaches Tabla to advanced students in both San Francisco and Mumbai. Zakir participates in the Global Drum Project with percussionists from around the world.
In 1992, Hussain founded Moment! Records, which features original collaborations in the field of contemporary world music, as well as live concert performances by great masters of the classical music of India. The label presents his own world percussion ensemble, The Rhythm Experience, both North and South Indian classical recordings, Best of Shakti and the Masters of Percussion series. Moment Records’ 2006 release Golden Strings of the Sarode, with Aashish Khan and Zakir Hussain, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional World Music Album category for that year.
He starred in several films specifically showcasing his musical performance both solo and with different bands, including the 1998 documentary “Zakir and His Friends”, and the documentary “The Speaking Hand: Zakir Hussain and the Art of the Indian Drum” (2003 Sumantra Ghosal). He also performs in the DVDs The Rhythm Devils Concert Experience (2008), and The Way of Beauty (2006) with the band Remember Shakti.
He was named an Old Dominion Fellow by the Humanities Council at Princeton University, where he resided for the 2005–2006 semester as full professor in the music department. He was also a visiting professor at Stanford University.
Source from wikipedia