Mr. Gopal Shah (Broadening Narratives)

Description

Gopal Shah, 44, is a Chicago-based percussionist, music educator, and former healthcare administrator originally from Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The interview includes discussion of his childhood in India, growing up in a household centered on music, and his close but strict relationship with his father, a professional musician and music teacher. He describes immigrating to the United States at age 8, the cultural shock of arriving in suburban Chicago, and his early schooling at Holmes Junior High and Elk Grove High School. Shah reflects on being pulled out of school prior to immigration to receive intensive tabla training, his early performances at Hindu temples alongside his father, and his later transition to drums and Western percussion. Other topics discussed include: his college education and initial pursuit of a medical career, work in marketing and medical billing and coding, managing home-care medical businesses, returning to music full time after career setbacks, his marriage and personal transformation, the role of spirituality and Hindu practice in his life, numerology and meditation, teaching music to future students, and adapting traditional percussion to the digital music era.