Global Rhythms was formed in 1996 at Miami University, by 4 people, and has now had 400 members since then. They met A R Rahman in London in 2000 and he's given them plenty of encouragement. There was a rumour doing the rounds that he'd appear on stage, but that didn't happen, although his sister Rehana did.
             Free performances without tickets are like lectures without attendance. They're usually good. My knowledge of music is very rudimentary, but I liked what I heard. The band's credo is music without borders, and they play any instrument and in any style. The foreigners in the band spent three months learning to play Indian instruments and about Indian styles.
             There was a saxophone, ghatam, three types of drums, a mridangam, xylophone, violin, oboe, flute, and tabla. They started with nambikulla rasa (hope I got it right), and followed with a fusion of carnatic and rock music titled Ecstasy. There was a brilliant drum solo on marching drums titled Tribute. The performance seemed to be a selection from a large repertoire, and they chose their pieces so that all instruments were played, in solo or together, with different styles of music. They played quite a few Indian ragas, and watching the foreigners play Indian music was fascinating.
             They played a couple of movie tracks too - Chhaiiya Chhaiya in Tamil, and from Mangal Pandey and Rang de Basanti. They had three women dancing to a couple of tracks, and I doubt if three women can provoke a similar reaction elsewhere! The band performed with little practice because their equipment had just reached or not reached at all. I doubt if many people would have realised that if they had not told us!
              The members of the band are all excellent musicians in their own right, (James the drummer being a four time world champion!) and some have come to India earlier on exchange programmes and scholarships to study Indian music.
             Overall, it was a good show, but most of the audience had little formal training or understanding of classical music, so many (including me) could not fully appreciate what we heard.