Mark T. & Iqbal Khan Pathan
Mark T. & Iqbal Khan Pathan
Mark T. and Iqbal Pathan are a new duo. However, they have previously played together in a variety of settings since the mid 1990’s often working for the arts agency ‘Traditional Arts Projects’ in the bands Roots Progress and Roots Orchestral where they played alongside members of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta.
Mark plays Greek and Irish bouzoukis, steel guitar, harmonica and sings.
Iqbal plays tabla, dholak and darabuka.
They play an absolute rainbow of music: folk, blues, Greek rembetika, reggae and even a little medieval music.
About Iqbal Khan Pathan
Iqbal was born in Uganda in 1949 and moved to the UK in 1969. He has always had a passion for playing percussion.
As a young boy, he accompanied his brothers in their musical performances at various venues in Uganda. Their performances were also broadcast on Ugandan Television and Radio.
In the UK, Iqbal has been involved in many styles of music. He studied the tabla in 1987 under the renowned guru, Gurmit Singh Virdee, an accomplished tabla teacher.
Within the last few years, he has diversified his skills by learning new styles of percussion. He studied the darabouka under Hossam Ramzy, a master in Egyptian Percussion, which opened the door into world music. He was also introduced to western music by Roger Watson.
Iqbal has toured nationwide with the multi-cultural band, Boka Halat, at venues such as the Sidmouth International Folk Festival and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank. Several of the groups he has been involved with have toured internationally. With the group 'Millan', he travelled for three weeks in Norway, performing concerts across the whole country. He has been to France with 'Roots Progress', conducted by Roger Watson. Additionally, he toured in Switzerland with an Indian group playing Indian classical, Ghazal and folk music.
About Mark T.
Mark was born in Hereford in 1957, nine miles from the Welsh border. His mother was Polish - Ukrainian and his father was Latvian. They both had a strong love of music and Mark has had an active interest in music since the age of eleven when he began learning classical guitar with Robert Neville.
He first came to the attention of the general public in 1983 when he released his debut album, ‘What’s It All About?’. His subsequent albums ‘Johnny There’ , ‘Middle East to Mid West’ and ‘The Garden of Love’ all received rave reviews across all areas of the music spectrum.
Mark has played across England and Wales with his two major bands The Brickbats (who mixed world music with jazz and folk) and Rootdogs (predominantly blues but with excursions into rembetika and English folk songs).
He has toured Brittany twice with Uillean piper Paul Hancock, played regularly in Denmark and occasionally in Italy.
In addition to the above he has also played medieval and early music with Charles Spicer (National Theatre and Mellstock band) and currently is a member of the Irish band Bouzouki Bellows.
From 2000 – 2012 he was leader of the ground breaking community music band Time Spanners who did around sixty gigs a year in a wide variety of venues as well as appearing on TV three times.
Mark T. & Iqbal Khan Pathan Together
Mark and Iqbal will bring you a unique collection of tunes and songs which recognises and explores the musical similarities between, apparently, differing cultures. For example, the Greek taxim, an improvised introduction to a tune in rembetika, has a lot of similarities to the Indian alap. Traditional English music, medieval music and Irish and Greek music is modal as is Asian classical music. Many of the beats in rural country blues match those played by Iqbal on the tabla and dholak.
Iqbal Khan Pathan and Mark T., lifetime practitioners of their music, will bring you a collection of unique sounds and rhythms yet to be discovered.
Also available for workshops as a duo or with dancer Abanti Mukhopadhyay.
Up coming gigs:
Caryford Hall, Castle Cary, Somerset, Saturday 8th March 2025
Music at Farnham Pottery, Farnham, Surrey, Friday 25th April 2025
The Edge Arts Centre, Much Wenlock, Friday 26th September 2025