Join us for an evening of celebrating a collaboration between Indian classical musicians and area jazz musicians. Led by pianist, Leo Coach, Infusion brings together voices from Northeast Ohio and across India to perform an exciting evening of music on the heels of the annual Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival.

Tickets for this performance are $20 each. This event will also be livestreamed on BOP STOP's Youtube Channel at showtime. Accessing the stream is free but donations are encouraged and directly support the band.

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Members of Infusion

Leo Coach: Piano
Mr. Coach has over 30 years experience performing and composing music in a variety of different genres with musicians from around the world. European performance highlights include the Ljubljana Jazz Festival, the Jazz Lent Music Festival in Slovenia; The Custard Factory Music Series in Birmingham, England and at Club 54 in Heidelberg, Germany. In America he has done concerts at The Kool Jazz Festival, The Tri-C Jazz Fest, the Eneke Festival, The Thyagaraja Festival and Stifel Arts Jazz Series. Leo has an extensive discography working in many different genres from theater pieces, poetry collaborations, Latin Jazz and Salsa and Carnatic music.

Leo is currently head of the Music Department at Ursuline College. He is also adjunct faculty at Cleveland State University. His areas of specialization are Ethnomusicology/World Music and Jazz. He has lectured on those fields at different colleges both here and abroad.

Vidwan Chitravina Ganesh: Vocals and Chitravina
Chitravina Ganesh is a world-record setting slide instrumentalist and vocalist, is the grandson of the legendary Gottuvadyam Narayana Iyengar. He has been trained on the chitravina by his maternal uncle chitravina maestro Narasimhan and is among the best performers of the instrument in the world today. He is a top ranked artist of All India Radio and Doordarshan and is the Asthana Vidwan of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam. He was bestowed the prestigious “Isai Sudarmani” award by the Government of Tamil Nadu in 2023. He has toured the world extensively and he was the first Indian artist to be invited to perform chitravina in Taiwan. The city of Phoenix, AZ has proclaimed September 2nd as Chitravina Ganesh Day in 2019 in recognition of his contributions

Vidwan K N Shashikirian: Vocals
K.N. Shashikirian is one of the most sought after musicians and composers in Carnatic (South Indian) music. Vidwan K N Shashikirian has over 40 years of both performing and teaching music globally to over 3000 students. He has composed over 350 songs and scored background music for several thematic albums. Having made an international mark with over 25 albums, currently performing vocal duet concerts along with cousin 'Chitravina' Ganesh Parthasarathy and popularly known as the “Carnatica Brothers”.

Reed Simon: Violin
Reed Simon is an exhibiting painter, educator as well as a professional jazz violinist. Reed has been fortunate to haveworked with many of Cleveland's top jazz musicians over the years and has been on area stages including Nighttown warming up for artists such as French guitarists Olli Soikkeli and Stephane Wremble. In 2021, Reed was a guest artist with the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Paul Ferguson and backed up New York based French jazz group “Nuage Rhythms:”Reed is currently an Associate Professor and head of the Fine Arts Department at Notre Dame College in South Euclid, Ohio, he teaches both studio Art and Design as well as Graphic Design

Joe Culley: Tabla
For the past 21 years Joe has been focusing his musical intent upon the tabla (drums) of India. His tabla drumming gurus are international tabla master, Ustad Zakir Hussain, tabla maestro, Ty Burhoe. He has played in a wide variety of musical contexts ranging from hardcore punk, classic rock, Latin, jazz, etc. He has toured with blues legend Robert Jr. Lockwood. Joe's jazz fusion group Osmosis has played many concerts and festivals over its 8-year span opening for some of the jazz greats, such as Spyra Gyra, Chuck Mangione, Blood Sweat and Tears and Marion Meadows. He taught tabla at Akron’s India Sunday school for more than a decade and various students in North East Ohio

Lalit Subramanium: Vocals and Mirdangam
Lalit Subramanium is a well sought after performer and educator of Indian Classical Music in the US. Hailing from a family of connoisseurs and performers of Indian Classical Music, Lalit grew up in Pune and received his initial Carnatic vocal training under Smt. Chitra Subramanian and Smt. Rajalakshmi Pichumani of Pune.

Apart from vocal music, Lalit is also a percussionist and has studied both North Indian Tabla and South Indian Mirdangam. He has performed at various prestigious venues in the US such as the Kennedy Center for performing arts (Washington, D.C.), American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), Krannert Center for performing arts (Urbana, IL), Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles, CA), Lied Center (Lawrence, KA), Maltz Performing Arts (Cleveland, OH)