Sheela Bringi & Elden Kelly
Tickets: $28.50
On sale chautauqua.com
About
Chautauqua Member Presale: Tuesday, September 1 at 10:00 AM
Public On-sale: Wednesday, September 2 at 10:00 AM
Door time: 7:30
Show time: 8:00
Indian-American vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Sheela Bringi and genre-defying guitarist and vocalist Elden Kelly make music that moves freely between worlds — Indian classical rāga, jazz-inspired improvisation, folk lyricism, and original songs.
With harp, bansuri bamboo flute, harmonium, voice, and fretted and fretless guitar, the duo crafts a sound that is expansive yet intimate — meditative and deeply expressive. A pioneer of the “rāga harp,” Bringi accompanies her own voice on a 36-string harp tuned to Indian rāgas. Her ethereal, Hindustani-inflected vocals and bansuri — shaped by her training under bansuri legend G.S. Sachdev — meet Kelly’s haunting voice and a guitar language that draws on flamenco, jazz, blues, and Middle Eastern and Indian traditions. The music invites reflection, connection, and joy.
Sheela Bringi is trained in North Indian classical, devotional, and Western musical traditions. Her voice and playing appear on film and television scores including Disney’s Mira, Royal Detective, and Netflix’s Delhi Crime, and on more than fifty world and chant albums, among them the Grammy-nominated Bhakti Without Borders. She has collaborated with Idan Raichel, Karsh Kale, and Jai Uttal, and released two solo albums, Shakti Sutra and Incantations, featured on NPR and PRI. She teaches at Naropa University and co-founded the Sacred Sound Lab.
Elden Kelly — called a “once-in-a-generation player” by luthier Ken Parker, creator of the Parker Fly — is a guitarist, improviser, and composer whose credits include recording with Howard Levy and Bakithi Kumalo, and performing with Regina Carter and Fareed Haque, from JazzAscona in Switzerland to stages across the U.S. His guitars can evoke the oud, sarod, and sitar, and his rotating “Magic Fret” turns the instrument from fretted to fretless mid-song. He holds degrees from the New England Conservatory and Michigan State University, and relocated from the Midwest to Boulder in 2024.
Together, Bringi and Kelly offer an evening of music that is at once ancient and modern — a contemplative set that bridges traditions.
ALL TICKET PRICES ARE INCLUSIVE OF SERVICE FEES
Public On-sale: Wednesday, September 2 at 10:00 AM
Door time: 7:30
Show time: 8:00
Indian-American vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Sheela Bringi and genre-defying guitarist and vocalist Elden Kelly make music that moves freely between worlds — Indian classical rāga, jazz-inspired improvisation, folk lyricism, and original songs.
With harp, bansuri bamboo flute, harmonium, voice, and fretted and fretless guitar, the duo crafts a sound that is expansive yet intimate — meditative and deeply expressive. A pioneer of the “rāga harp,” Bringi accompanies her own voice on a 36-string harp tuned to Indian rāgas. Her ethereal, Hindustani-inflected vocals and bansuri — shaped by her training under bansuri legend G.S. Sachdev — meet Kelly’s haunting voice and a guitar language that draws on flamenco, jazz, blues, and Middle Eastern and Indian traditions. The music invites reflection, connection, and joy.
Sheela Bringi is trained in North Indian classical, devotional, and Western musical traditions. Her voice and playing appear on film and television scores including Disney’s Mira, Royal Detective, and Netflix’s Delhi Crime, and on more than fifty world and chant albums, among them the Grammy-nominated Bhakti Without Borders. She has collaborated with Idan Raichel, Karsh Kale, and Jai Uttal, and released two solo albums, Shakti Sutra and Incantations, featured on NPR and PRI. She teaches at Naropa University and co-founded the Sacred Sound Lab.
Elden Kelly — called a “once-in-a-generation player” by luthier Ken Parker, creator of the Parker Fly — is a guitarist, improviser, and composer whose credits include recording with Howard Levy and Bakithi Kumalo, and performing with Regina Carter and Fareed Haque, from JazzAscona in Switzerland to stages across the U.S. His guitars can evoke the oud, sarod, and sitar, and his rotating “Magic Fret” turns the instrument from fretted to fretless mid-song. He holds degrees from the New England Conservatory and Michigan State University, and relocated from the Midwest to Boulder in 2024.
Together, Bringi and Kelly offer an evening of music that is at once ancient and modern — a contemplative set that bridges traditions.
ALL TICKET PRICES ARE INCLUSIVE OF SERVICE FEES
