Musical Duo Vandana Give Free Concert Oct. 28 in Kemp Recital Hall

The musical duo Vandana, featuring double bass player Bill Koehler, Music, and tabla player Manpreet Bedi, will present a concert of original music at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 28, in Kemp Recital Hall at Illinois State University.  Admission is free and open to the public.

Joining them on selected pieces will pianist David Vayo, drummer Bob McEntyre, and saxophonist Paul Nolen of Illinois State's School of Music.  Vayo is an Illinois Wesleyan music faculty member.  The concert is co-sponsored by ISU's MECCPAC (Multi-Ethnic Cultural and Co-Curricular Programming Advisory Committee).

Vandana's Koehler and Bedi have musical interests that range from contemporary classical music to jazz to world music and the music of India, to the fusion of eastern and western musical languages. They explore the world of open-form improvisation in an array of tonalities within the framework of composed works.

The duo grew out of a four-year friendship and artistic relationship, and as a result, Koehler and Bedi have developed a common language that allows for very adventurous explorations.  In their music, the compositional structures of Western Contemporary Classical music and Jazz are combined with the improvisational and complex multi-metric rhythmic structures of Indian Classical music.