Concert performances, lecture-demonstrations, workshops.
Listen to a performance of rag Bhatiyar, about 17 min.
with Sai Shyam, tabla, at Sangeet Prabhat, New Brunswick NJ
Biographical Information
Allyn received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin where she majored in South Asian studies. On the Wisconsin Year in India Program and subsequently supported by Fulbright and Rockefeller grants she lived and studied in Varanasi, India for most of the eleven years between 1971 and 1982, where she studied under sitarist Thakur Raj Bhan Singh. She performed in a number of cities in India and on All India Radio before her return to the U.S. in 1982.
In 1985 she began advanced training under Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and became his formal disciple in 1990. She performs in Indian classical music circles, chamber and world music music series, universities, and private venues in the U.S. and regularly returns for performances in India. Her sitar style reflects her long training and experience in India and the guidance and aesthetic influence of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. She is one of seven Hindustani instrumentalists featured on the CD “Rainbow” (Neelam, 1998). Her new solo CD is will be released in fall 2004.
—The Pioneer, Mumbai, December 9, 1996
“Sitarist Allyn Miner was trained in Banaras by Thakur Rajbhan Singh of Banaras Hindu University and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Her treatment of raga Marubihag greatly impressed the audience. Her understanding of the raga, handling of the instrument, perfect tonal renditions left one spellbound.”
Allyn received a Ph.D. from the Department of Musicology, Banaras Hindu University, in 1982 for her dissertation “Sitar and Sarod in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” It has been published by the International Institute for Traditional Music (Berlin, 1993) and reprinted in India by Motilal Banarsidass (Delhi, 1997). She received a Ph.D. in Sanskrit from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 for work on the Sangitopanisatsaroddhara which has been published in Delhi. She continues her research on Indian musicological texts and the history of Hindustani music. She is Senior Lecturer in Indian Music and Coordinator of Performing Arts events in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where she has been since 1988. She practices and teaches yoga at the YogaSport studio in Ardmore PA. She lives with her husband Titus in Philadelphia.
Selected Performances
IAPA Sangeet Prabhat, New Brunswick NJ 2004
Kleinert Gallery, Woodstock NY w/Steve Gorn 2004
Brookhaven National Laboratory w/Darbari 2004
Won Institute, Philadelphia 2004
Swarthmore College 2004
MokshaYoga, Chicago, 2003
University of Pennsylvania 2002
Terra Haute, IN 2002
University of VT Burlington 2002
Dadar Matunga Cultural Centre, Mumbai 2000
Sangit Mahabharati, Mumbai 2000
Karnatak Sangh, Mumbai 2000, 1995
Sangit Research Academy, Calcutta 1999
Banaras Hindu University, 1999, 1993, 1991
Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 1998
Recent Workshops
“On Sound and Meditation from Sanskrit sources” Won Insititute Philadelphia 2004
“Understanding rag and tal” Temple University Philadelphia 2004
“Alap and gat: a guided tour” Haverford College 2004
For performance references, contact
The Director, Center for the Performing Arts of India, University of Pittsburgh