As We Speak: Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, and Edgar Meyer ft. Rakesh Chaurasia

If music is a universal language, then rhythm is arguably its vocabulary. This principle is on breathtaking display in The Melody of Rhythm, the 2009 genre-crossing album by Indian tabla legend and inveterate musical explorer Zakir Hussain, bluegrass-jazz-and-beyond banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, and classical-meets-folk double-bass wizard Edgar Meyer. As in their unforgettable 2018 Washington Performing Arts appearance, joined then as now by the dazzling Indian bansuri (bamboo flute) player Rakesh Chaurasia, these renowned and accomplished artists—each an accomplished improviser—combine forces at Strathmore this April to make music that revels in cultural convergence while leaving borders far behind.