While most of the Nepalese events have been focused on Nepalese pop songs and modern music, a group of youths are devotedly working for promoting Nepalese traditional and folk music in Pacific Northwest. Soon after conducting Nepalese drum classes for kids in Nepali School organized by Nepal Seattle Society, the instructor Subhash Ram Prajapati started another Nepalese drums madal and dhimay lesson for adults in Seattle, WA. Ten people learned to play madal in the beginners’ class. This is the first Nepalese music class in the United States.
For promoting Nepalese music, the team has been participating in various events in Seattle area including – the North- west Folklife Festival. The team of Subhash Ram Prajapati, Marie Takahashi, Rabin Prajapati, Suroj Dangol and Prem Nath Prajapati performed 30 minutes of Newar music in the festival on the drums: dhimay, dhah, naykhin, dapha khin and madal.
Subhash Ram Prajapati, a graduate student at University of Washington in Ethnomusicology, has been leading the cul- tural promotion activities with his “Youth for Culture Promotion” project which he founded in 2005. This award wining project also recently donated musical instruments to various musical groups in Kathmandu valley who have been affected by massive earthquakes in Nepal last year.
Youth for Cultural Promotion project successfully organized “An evening of Nepalese Music” on June 26th Sunday in Shoreline Masonic Center, Shoreline, WA. The event featured traditional and folk music and songs from various ethnic groups of Nepal including Sherpa, Tamang, Magar, Gurung, Kirat, and the Newar community. It was the first of its kind event in Northwest region and much acknowledged by the huge audience Sunday evening.
Angad Pun, Chetana Shakya, Dinesh Manandhar, Dipeeka Shrestha, Lumin Khape, Marie Taka- hashi, Minu Kayastha, Nil Tilija, Owen Cooney, Parina Shakya, Prem Kumar Prajapati, Prem Nath Prajapati, Rabin Prajapati, Roshan Raj Shrestha, Sabita Shrestha, Samir Dangol, Sanjeev Shrestha, Sita Gurung, Subhash Ram Prajapati, Suchit Shrestha, Sunil Joshi and Suroj Dangol performed instrumental music with 25 various musical in- struments altogether for two hours. The program included varieties of instrumental music, folk songs and a dance.
More detail about the project can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/dabuliorg