John Ball is an experienced performer and teacher of the North Indian, HIndustani style of music, specialising in the tabla and the 100 stringed santoor. He has been playing the tabla for 20+ years and has studied with some of the great tabla maestros in India including Ustad Faiyaz Khan and Pandit Yogesh Samsi. His love of the santoor comes from studing with Ustad Harjinderpal Singh, a renowned santoor player. Over the last 15 years John has built a reputation as an active and committed teacher, promoting Indian music through regular workshops in schools, universities and community projects.

While being a dedicated performer in playing tabla and santoor in traditional settings, he also experiments with several successful fusion projects, as well as collaborating with Western classical music, West African, jazz, folk and pop music. In his teaching work, John is known to explore improvisation skills through Indian music rhythmic and melodic concepts, with individuals or assembles. He has an interest in the adaptation of Indian music onto non-Indian instruments, as well as with several successful fusion projects. He also regularly performs as an accompanist with Balbir Singh Dance Company and he has also had several articles on Indian Music published and has written over 100 liner notes for Indian Music CD releases.

John is currently working with the University of Sheffield as World Music Performer in Residence. John regularly performs on tabla and santoor with several music and dance projects including Rafiki Jazz, a Sheffield based 10-piece world music collective. Mishra, a Sheffield based Indo-Folk music quartet made up of ex University of Sheffield music graduates, and Pandit Pratap Pawar (Kathak dance). He has also worked with a diverse range of artists including Sarathy Korwar, Juldeh Camara (BBC World Music Award Winner), Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley.

Currently, John Ball teaches SAA-uk's Tabla classes as part of our Hindustani (North Indian classical) Academy - click HERE to learn more and sign up!