Usha Akella, poet and Steve Gorn, flute

Poet Usha Akella will read from her most recent book of poems accompanied by the internationally-renowned musician Steve Gorn. The poetry celebrates the Sufi spirit with poems of devotion, love, and yearning for the divine. The work resonates with the sanctity and dignity of the Rothko Chapel’s mission and is universal in its spiritual message of love and harmony.

Usha Akella moved to the United States from India in 1993. She received a master's degree from the University of Baltimore, where she began to write seriously. She is the author of two volumes of poetry, has been published in numerous magazines, journals, and newspapers, and has been an invited poet to various poetry festivals. She was the winner of the Maryland Poetry Review's Egan Memorial Contest, and was a finalist twice for the Wisconsin University Press contest. A Face That Does Not Bear the Footprints of the World was released at the International Rumi Conference in India in March 2008 to much acclaim from scholars and poets.

Steve Gorn is well known in the West for his creative blends of Indian and Western music, and his recordings with Paul Simon, Krisha Das, and Glen Velez. He has toured Europe and Africa with the legendary jazz drummer, Jack DeJohnette, and was recently music director for Jerome Robbins' ballet, Watermill. He has worked with Julie Taymor, created the acoustic/electronic score for Ranjabati Sircar's dance, Cassandra, which was premiered in Calcutta in 1996, and recently created music for Rajika Puri's Dance Collaborations, in New York. He is currently composing music with Jean-Claude van Itallie for a theatrical work based on the life of the Tibetan Yogi, Milarepa. His flute is featured on the 2004 Academy Award-winning documentary film Born into Brothels, and he has performed Indian Classical Music and new American Music on the bansuri bamboo flute in concerts and festivals throughout the world. He is said to be one of the few westerners who has captured the subtle nuances of Indian music. His numerous recordings include Luminous Ragas, the landmark Indian-Jazz fusion recording, Asian Journal, and Pranam, a jugalbandi with Barun Kumar Pal playing hansaveena, and Samir Chatterjee, tabla. His latest recording is Rasika, with tabla by Samir Chatterjee.