The band SAMAGA happily marries different musical traditions. Their music find roots in India, the Middle East and worldwide musical influences with a joyful dash of modern harmonies. The band melts modern compositions into Indian ambiances, delivering their own interpretation of traditional Arabic Maqam and Indian Raga, constantly reinventing the soundscapes painted by the Indian Sitar, the Middle Eastern/Indian Percussions and the Oud.

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Oud : Pierre Brahin

Pierre Brahin is a french multi-instrumentalist, classical/electric guitarist and oud player. In Beijing, besides performing his compositions with “Samaga” and the “Pierre Brahin trio B”, he has released his first CD “How long has this been going on ?” with singer Wang Yunyi, delivering his version of popular Chinese Pop Songs. At the same time, he participated on Zuxiao Zuzhou album “ Qu Naizi fang ”. For the last several years, he also has been composing music for and playing with singer Zhang Chu. Among other collaborations are : Canadian singer Kamila Nasr (Persian Music), Flamenco dancer and singer Zhao Zhen, and many other folk singers like Milan Bieke, Zhang Weiwei or Wan Xiaoli.

Pierre Brahin has performed in most of the important concert halls and festivals in China mainland, Hong Kong and Taipeh : Polytheatre, Beijing Concert Hall, Hong Kong Coliseum, Simple Life in Taipeh, Workers Gymnasium, Shanghai Stadium & Gymnasium, and many others.

In his youth he studied piano and classical guitar at the conservatory in south France, later he graduated in musicology in Montpellier. In the 90's he studied Jazz with the guitarist of the French National Jazz Orchestra, Gérard Pansanel, and flamenco with virtuoso guitarist Christophe Lopez. Being passionate for numerous world music genres, particularly music from Middle-East, he started performing on Oud and was taught by oudist Hadi Heldebek.

Percussions :Yang Dong

Yang Dong is an active percussionist in Beijing. His main collaborations are with the DA LV band, with whom he released the album “The World”, and the ensemble SAMAGA (Middle-East, Indian music). He’s also a percussions instructor in Beijing, specialized in Derbuka and Djembe. Yang Dong graduated from the Capital Normal University, his major being music education.

Among other noticeable performances : the performance of bamboo to tea, listening to the sound of the wetland series. BlueNote label 75th anniversary performances. Sichuan Hongyuan grassland Music Festival, Orson Park Summer Music season.

Sitar : Ma Zheng

Ma Zheng is a chinese Sitar player based in Beijing. He studied from Indian Classical music masters Bheemsain Bhajantri and Keshav Talegaonkar. For the last 10 years Ma Zheng has been trying to mix Indian classical music with different music styles : Jazz, Rock, Fusion, Pop, Improvised Music, electro etc…

Regarding this traditional Indian instrument, Ma Zheng always possesses a passion to it and he manages to perform with a unique perspective that makes him the most active and youngest Sitar player in China. Among his numerous performances over the past few years : some popular national TV shows like “The Best Song of China”, “The Star of China”, “I am the Singer”, “I Want to Sing with You”, “13 Billions of Decibels”. In addition, he has also been invited to CCTV for many music related programs. In 2016, he created online Sitar learning courses for the iartschool website, providing for the first time Sitar online classes in Chinese .

Percussions / Kaval : He Kairan

He Kairan graduated from Tianjin conservatory of music with a master ’s degree in 2017. Played in Tianjin Youth Orchestra four several years and took part in several important concerts. While studying classical percussions, he explored and developed his practice of many worldwide percussions, wind instruments.