Episode date 7 January 2012

Masala Canada - Saturday, January 7th 2012

Conversations with Dennis Gruending and Gabriel Dharmoo

MASALA CANADA with WOJTEK GWIAZDA

On this edition of MASALA CANADA we’ll talk about politics and religion in Canada with Ottawa-based author Dennis Gruending. He is a former journalist, a former Director of Information for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. He’s been a Member of Parliament, and is the author of a number of books. His latest, released this past autumn, is titled “Pulpit and Politics: Competing Religious Ideologies in Canadian Public Life”. We discuss the alliances and antagonism among religious groups, the issues that unite many religious activists, and the approach of Canada’s ruling Conservative government towards the different political tendencies among them.

 

Then I talk to Montreal contemporary classical music composer Gabriel Dharmoo, who this Monday, January 9^th, will perform a solo Carnatic Cello Concert at the Arkay Convention Centre in Chennai. For the past three months he’s been studying the Carnatic music approach of Indian classical music. It’s a music with a strong emphasis on singing, even if it’s interpreted by instruments. What Gabriel Dharmoo is doing is trying to understand the music as a composer, through playing the music, and on a very western instrument, the cello. Monday he’ll share that experience with an audience in Chennai.

(Photo by Paul Neudorf)

 

WEB LINKS:

Dennis Gruending blog – www.dennisgruending.ca

Beats on Canvas music and info – www.beatsoncanvas.com

Brigitte Boisjoli music and info – www.brigitteboisjoli.ca

Gabriel Dharmoo, Monday 7PM concert info– here

Gabriel Dharmoo music and info – www.gabrieldharmoo.org