Join us for our Livestream Series featuring Rohith Jayaraman and Layth Sidiq. We are grateful to The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts for their support to make these programs available for free but donations are welcome to support the artists directly.

Presented in collaboration with the #KenCenCultureCaucus

Watch live @kennedycenter or @districtofraga

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It began as a friendship between two musicians from two traditions:
Layth Sidiq, an Iraqi-Jordanian violinist, and Rohith Jayaraman, an Indian-American vocalist.

Sparked by their common interest in the rich musical traditions of India and the Middle East, Layth and Rohith embarked on a 6-year collaborative journey that culminated in this EP — Hamsa. Entirely crowdfunded, Hamsa raised over $4,000 in just 2 days. When the campaign ended, they had raised more than 150% of their original goal, with backers from around the world!

As individual artists, Layth and Rohith have shared the stage with icons including A.R. Rahman, Zakir Hussain, John McLaughlin, Simon Shaheen, Shankar Mahadevan, Tigran Hamasyan, Ranjit Barot, Javier Limon, and Shreya Ghoshal; and Antarctica aside, they’ve played on every continent. Perhaps not a huge feat, but it sure is fun to say!

In a world of heavily arranged and produced music, Hamsa is an homage to the simplicity and energy of live, improvised, classical-folk music. The music you’ll find in Hamsa is honest, traditional, and maybe a little blasphemous — just the kind of music they love to play