MUMBAI: The True School of Music, an institution promoting and teaching heterogeneous forms, are hosting masterclass by Ser O Duo - a duet of professional musicians from Chile, South-America. The two-member band comprising of Tomas Carrasco and Moa Edmonds will be interacting with the students, they will talk about South American music, rhythmic development and the use of wind instruments from many places of the world.  Their work consists of composition based on South-American rhythms and experimentation.

Explaining further, Moa Edmonds on Guitar says, “We are planning to perform the music we compose, and then take from the examples of the subjects we are interested to explore with them (South American music, rhythm development, mainly), making some interactive exercises and more traditional examples. It is very important that they make their queries.”

Both of them have strong Western Classical music background; however, working together for years together, they have expanded their horizons beyond a typical genre. Edmonds says, “We met and connected due to our common background too. But during and after that period we have been working on many projects linked to South-American folk music, jazz, experimentation, mixes of many kinds. I would say that having all this background, we just create what we feel and don’t really think about what style we are working on. Tomas also has studied and continues studying many flutes from the world and the styles of playing them. This brings some "world music" elements to our work.”

Tomas is also learning the Indian version of the flute under the legendary Padmavibhushan Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia and that is how they are connected with the Indian Classical music. Adding, Edmonds says, “Tomas has studied a little bit of tabla, and has been learning Hindustani Classical music and bansuri in Mumbai for the past four months. Therefore, he has some introduction to tabla and Indian conception of cycles and rhythms.”

The duo is thrilled to perform at The True School of Music, “It seems like a very professional and serious institution for learning music. We know that there is also a convergence of Indian and western music and that for us is very valuable. We also think it is very important that they have the initiative to give their students the chance to meet touring musicians like us because that will enrich their craft.”

Sharing their India plans, Edmonds sign off saying, “Until now, this is the last activity in Mumbai (we are opened to have more), and then we will go to Delhi, where we have some more concerts. Our journey is mainly about shooting a documentary named "Nomadic Sounds", so we don´t have many gigs planned. We just finished producing our first album named Testimonio, and it will be on all the digital platforms very soon. We are also selling a downloadable version of it.”

The Masterclass is scheduled on 28 May at 7:30 pm at The True School of Music, Mumbai.