What the critics have said
“The eloquent tabla player Salar Nader”
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim “The Classical Music Our Critics Can’t Stop Thinking
About,” New York Times 3/6/2025
“A bravura performance”
-Andrew Gilbert, SF Classical Voice 11/4/2025
“The second half of Murmurs fully came to life, as Third Coast joined Nader on tabla
with drum kit, vibraphone, and marimba, surging and rising through a sequence of
cycles. Their precision, which felt natural and unstudied, spoke to the devotion with
which they have absorbed Hussain’s ideas.”
-Andrew Gilbert, SF Classical Voice 11/4/2025
“Born in Hamburg to Afghan parents, Nader grew up in the Bay Area and studied with
Hussain from the age of seven, which inspired the title of the tabla-centric piece that
opened the concert’s second half. Third Coast’s Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter
Martin, and David Skidmore joined Nader for Seven, delivering a bravura
performance that moved through various North Indian rhythmic cycles, building
in intensity to a rising flourish and finishing together on a dime.”
-Andrew Gilbert, SF Classical Voice 11/4/2025
https://www.sfcv.org/articles/review/third-coast-percussion-celebrates-two-decades#
“[Nader] is one of the most prominent of the next generation of tabla players poised to
take the next step for their instrument.”
…
“Nader, very impressively, learned the demanding solo from the recording and he then,
as Hussain would have expected, added his own character.”
…
“Tabla is here to stay, and Nader bears watching.”
-Mark Swed “Tabla great Zakir Hussain’s last work, ‘Murmurs in Time,’ sets the stage for
a new generation,” LA Times 12/12/2025