Mark Deutsch and Laura Inserra SAND16 Opening Night Concert

SAND16 opening concert with Mark Deutsch and Laura Inserra. Mark Deutsch can best be described as a 21st century Renaissance man. A professional musician since the age of twelve, he is a visionary artist with a background in non-linear mathematics, sacred systems and cosmology. As a classically trained bassist and sitar player he gained extensive experience in orchestral and world music ensembles, jazz combos, and solo sitar performance. While studying sitar and North Indian classical music with the legendary Ustad Imrat Khan, Mark began delving deeper into the universal fundamentals of music and their underlying frequency structures which also saw him embark on his quest to develop an instrument that could reproduce his findings. This work culminated in 1999 with Mark being awarded the US patent for his ground breaking new instrument the Bazantar - a five-string acoustic bass fitted with an additional twenty-nine sympathetic strings and four drone strings. The result is a remarkable instrument that weaves a mesmerizing soundscape of resonance, and evokes all the power of Western classical music with the depth and nuance of Eastern traditions. Since the creation of the Bazantar, and the critically acclaimed release of his first solo album “Fool”, Mark has been performing extensively world wide. His awe-inspiring solo sitar and Bazantar performances have drawn rave reviews from the international music community and have generated invitations for Mark to perform at the Juilliard School of Music, Merkan Concert Hall, The Hawaiian Contrabass Festival and many other high profile festivals and venues. He is no stranger to film and theatrical composition having written and performed the theatre score for a much lauded French production of Steven Berkoff’s adaptation of Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher“ and several independent films. On the collaborative side, his music has attracted an eclectic array of some of today’s finest musicians, including Grammy award-winning cellist David Darling, film composer David Julyan (Insomnia, Memento), seminal Chicago rock band Tortoise, virtuoso erhu player and principle soloist with the Beijing National Symphony Yang Ying, multi-instrumentalist Jaron Lanier and jazz luminaries such as William Parker, Roy Campbell, and Hamid Drake. Mark currently resides in San Francisco while working on his second solo release. Laura Inserra is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and artistic director. She is a classically trained musician with a strong improvisational background. A native of Sicily, her work in Italy is well-known, including integral participation in the composition of numerous movie scores and the artistic direction of innovative live productions. Inserra performed internationally in prestigious festivals and theaters in Italy and the US that include: The Colosseum (Rome), Auditorium Parco della Musica (Rome), Teatro Olimpico (Rome), The Chapel of the Chimes (Oakland), CounterPULSE (SF), NOHSpace (SF) and San Francisco City Hall among others. An internationally acclaimed Hang player, Inserra has collaborated with various artists globally. The Hang has been dubbed as “the new instrument of this Millennium”. Her performances are infused with a unique blend of musical inspiration and melodic harmonies which deeply resonate with audiences worldwide. In 2007 she moved to the Bay Area and she founded Samavesha, a non-profit multidisciplinary performing arts organization. Audiences worldwide are not only mesmerized by this woman but also captivated by her virtuosity, profound musicality, and the passion that she brings on the stage. More info: