Allyn Miner

Prof. Allyn Miner Allyn Miner is a concert performer on the North Indian sitar. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania where she teaches South Asian music and performing arts. Her research and publications relate to the history of the sitar and sarod, Sanskrit, Hindi and Urdu musicological sources, and other Indological topics. She is also a teacher of hatha yoga in the style of Sri Pattabhi Jois.

Allyn Miner is a concert performer on the North Indian sitar. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania where she teaches South Asian music and performing arts. Her research and publications relate to the history of the sitar and sarod, Sanskrit, Hindi and Urdu musicological sources, and other Indological topics. She is also a teacher of hatha yoga in the style of Sri Pattabhi Jois.

(Source: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~aminer/ )

Biographical info

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.

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

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~aminer/performance.html


THE DARBARI ENSEMBLE - CHAMBER MUSIC OF INDIA

Darbari, formed in 2002, performs Indian classical music in an ensemble style. The group consists of Pandit RAMESH MISRA on sarangi, STEVE GORN on bansuri, Pandit SAMIR CHATTERJEE on tabla, and ALLYN MINER on sitar.

(Source: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~aminer/darbari.html)