Live sitar for the Bay Area.
SCOBA is the Sitar Circle of Bay Area, a student-led group in Fremont that brings North Indian classical music to senior living communities, schools, restaurants, and neighbors.
Next concert: A Journey Within Saturday, November 14, in Fremont. Sitar for the Soul with Pandit Maruti Patil. Thanks for joining A Journey Within Details on the next gathering will be posted here.
Pluck the string
A Journey Within
Sitar for the Soul with Pandit Maruti Patil, visiting from India. Organized and hosted by Advait Gaur as SCOBA's inaugural fundraiser.
This gathering has taken place. Thank you to everyone who came.
- Where
- Private home, Fremont, California. Address shared on RSVP.
- Seats
- 50 seats. RSVP required.
- Advance
- $30 suggested contribution
- At the door
- $35 suggested contribution
- Hospitality
- Light refreshments
100% of contributions go directly to the artist. Suggested contributions are not presented as tax-deductible.
Based in Fremont. Playing across the Bay Area.
A raga is meant to be heard up close. SCOBA brings the sitar to rooms where people can sit near the music, ask questions, and stay for the conversation afterward.
The rooms we play
- Senior living communities
- Schools
- Restaurants
- Cultural groups
- Neighborhood and home gatherings
Where in the Bay Area
- Fremont and the Tri-City area
- South Bay and San Jose
- East Bay
- Peninsula
- San Francisco
Past performances include Carlton Senior Living and community concerts.
An Evening of Sitar
सितार की शाम
Live Indian classical music to calm, uplift, and bring residents together, offered free to senior living communities.
Student of Dhanashree Bhadkamkar, disciple of Pandit Maruti Patil
For the past seven years, Advait has devoted himself to Indian classical music and sitar, a centuries-old North Indian tradition. He hopes to share that practice where it can do the most good: in the lounges and gathering rooms of senior communities. Each visit is a calm, unhurried performance shaped to the mood of the room.
- Free
- A community service offering for senior living communities
- 30 to 45 minutes
- A calm, unhurried program
- Simple to host
- Advait brings his own microphone and speakers. You provide the room.
- Weekday evenings to weekends
- Scheduled around your calendar
The quiet medicine of raga
- Calms the body. Slow, melodic music is associated with lower heart rate, easier breathing, and reduced anxiety.
- Awakens memory. Live music can stir long-held memories and lift mood, especially for residents living with dementia.
- Eases isolation. A shared performance gathers residents together and brings a welcome sense of occasion.
- Soothes the spirit. The sitar's resonant drone creates a deeply restful, contemplative atmosphere in any room.
Share the flyer
Print it for a community bulletin board, or send it to your activities director. Select a page to open the full PDF.
Watch and listen
Recordings from senior living visits and concerts.
Videos are on the way
We're adding recordings of Advait's performances. If you're planning an event and want to hear him first, ask for a recording.
Moments
Senior living visits, community concerts, and notes from people who were there. Select a photo to enlarge it.
Practice became a way to bring people together.
Advait Gaur is a high school sitarist who has studied Indian classical music and sitar for seven years. He founded SCOBA to take that music beyond lessons and recitals, into places where a live raga can spark memory, conversation, and discovery.
SCOBA shares live sitar in community spaces, turns years of musical study into service and student leadership, and helps new listeners hear Indian classical music with context, curiosity, and respect for its living lineage.
- Teacher
- Dhanashree Bhadkamkar
- Guru
- Pandit Maruti Patil
- Gharana
- Imdadkhani
The soul of the sitar
The sitar is a long-necked lute from northern India with around twenty strings. Beneath the strings the musician plays lie sympathetic strings that vibrate on their own, wrapping every note in a shimmering halo of sound and a continuous, meditative drone that listeners often find deeply calming.
From Banaras to the Beatles Read the story
In the 1960s, the great sitar master Ravi Shankar carried this ancient instrument onto the world stage. He took on a remarkable student, George Harrison of the Beatles, whose sitar on the 1965 song "Norwegian Wood" introduced the instrument's sound to millions of Western listeners for the first time.
Shankar went on to perform at the legendary Monterey Pop and Woodstock festivals, and Harrison fondly called him "the godfather of world music." The same living tradition they shared with the world is the one Advait studies today, and the one he hopes to bring into your community room.
An hour of this music can become the highlight of a resident's week. We would be honored to bring it to your community, at no cost.
Have a room that would welcome this music?
Senior living communities, schools, restaurants, cultural groups, and hosts across the Bay Area are invited to ask about a performance or a musical conversation with Advait.