Pandit Samir Chatterjee is a virtuoso Tabla player of India. He travels widely across the world throughout the year performing in numerous festivals as a soloist or with other outstanding musicians from both Indian and Western traditions. All of Samir's teachers have been from the Farrukhabad Gharana (school) of Tabla-playing, which he represents. He has been teaching for the last 30 years and many of his students are established performers. Samir can be heard on numerous recordings, and in concert he has accompanied many of India's greatest musicians including Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee, Shivkumar Sharma and Lakshmi Shankar to name just a few. Samir lives in New York, where he has become a catalyst in the fusion of Indian and Western music. He is the Founder-Director of CHHANDAYAN, an organization dedicated to promoting and preserving Indian music and culture by conducting classes and workshops, and organizing concerts. Samir is on the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, University of Pittsburgh, and New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. In December 2007, he performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony and Concert in Oslo, Norway.

Samir will lead the rhythm class and offer tabla lessons.

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Allyn Miner practices Ashtanga and Iyyengar yoga and has been a well-loved yoga teacher in the Philadelphia area for the last ten years. Allyn has degrees in Sanskrit and Indian Music from the University of Pennsylvania and Banaras Hindu University. She is a concert sitarist, and a regular performer in Indian music circles across the U.S. and in India. Allyn lived and studied in India between 1971 and 1982. She received a PhD. in Musicology from Banaras Hindu University for her work on the early history of the sitar. She later earned a Ph.D. in Sanskrit from the University of Pennsylvania. In sitar performance, she is disciple of Thakur Raj Bhan Singh and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. She is the Senior Lecturer in music in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Allyn studied Ashtanga yoga with Dee Silvers and Manju Jois in the Philadelphia area and studies Iyyengar yoga with Joan White in Philadelphia. She was an instructor at the Yogasport studio in Ardmore, PA for a number of years and now teaches privately.

Allyn will lead the daily yoga sessions as well as provide musical support for the retreat.

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Vaidyanathan Suresh is widely recognized as the finest Ghatam (clay pot) player of his generation. He is a rare and dynamic drummer whose playing of the Ghatam is marked by remarkable speed & precision. V. Suresh had the unique opportunity to study the Umayalpuram Kothandarama Iyer school of Ghatam-playing and is now the sole representative of this style. At the age of 12, he won the prestigious Talent Search Scholarship from the Government of India, and in 1981, he received the prestigious President's Medal in the annual All-India Radio competition. He has learned the techniques of playing on various South Indian percussion instruments including the Mridangam, Kanjira, Thavil, Konnakkol and the Dolki. V. Suresh tours extensively and has performed in venues across the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia. The proud Guru of a large number of students spread throughout the world, he runs a school called "Gnanalaya", where students from the age of 5 to 40 come to study with him. In 2007, he made his NY City debut at Joe’s Pub with the band RhythmScape, and was honored to collaborate in a recording session at the invitation of Paul Simon.

V. Suresh will offer private instruction on the Ghatam and Mridangam.

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