Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Presents Color Your Mind Festival

Curated by visionary East Bay percussionist Sameer Gupta of Rootstock Arts, Color Your Mind is a gathering of musicians dedicated to expanding the boundaries of classical Indian music and related traditions into exciting new territory. This year's program features the brilliant Carnatic violinist and vocalist Sruti Sarathy, who has forged a highly personal sound by combining her South Indian classical training with influences from North India's Hindustani tradition. Multi-instrumentalist Siddique Ahmed (aka Sohrab), a founding member of Afghanistan's first rock band, Kabul Dreams, brings his lute-like rubab, the national instrument of Afghanistan. And Delhi-born Suhail Yusuf Khan, who hails from a musical dynasty, performs on vocals and sarangi, the bowed, short-neck, three-string instrument that can sound strikingly like a human voice. Each artist presents their own set exploring improvisation within the wide-open framework of Hindustani and Carnatic raga music, "which has been translated to mean 'that which colors the mind,'" Gupta says. "Color Your Mind really cuts to the essence of the idea that this is music for anyone and everyone."