Remembering Shakti — English guitarist John McLaughlin, along with the Indian musicians, Zakir Hussain (tabla), U. Srinivas (mandolin), Shankar Mahadevan (vocals), and V. Selvaganesh (kanjira, ghatam, mridangam) — will soon be performing a concert in Ramallah where the group wishes to express their “personal affection for the Palestinian people.” McLaughlin and Hussain were members of the original band Shakti which performed and recorded three albums in the mid-70s.

I’m no serious scholar of religion, least of all of Islam, but I’m inclined to believe that herein lies Islam’s greatest gift to the world: that by refraining from any visual representation of God it forced human expression of the divine to become concentrated and distilled in sound — never more so than in the voice of one such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the King of Kings of Qawwali, one of the greatest singers who ever lived.

World Science Festival — Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus

Is our response to music hard-wired or culturally determined? Is the reaction to rhythm and melody universal or influenced by environment? John Schaefer, scientist Daniel Levitin, and musical artist Bobby McFerrin engage in live performances and cross-cultural demonstrations to illustrate music’s noteworthy interaction with the brain and our emotions.