Sunny Jain Residency

Brooklyn-based composer and drummer Sunny Jain is the Center for the Arts artist in residence for 2023-2024, developing his new music theater project “Love Force.” 

Read Sunny Jain to Create New Music Theater Project During Wesleyan Residency in The Wesleyan Connection. 

Jain’s “Wild Wild East” headlined the Center for the Arts 50th Birthday Party in September 2023 in Crowell Concert Hall, the group’s Connecticut debut. “I’m going to be around a lot this year, so I hope to see many of you and meet many of you,” Jain said. Read Center for the Arts Celebrates 50th Birthday in The Wesleyan Connection.

Watch Sunny Jain's "Wild Wild East" perform a Tiny Desk Concert for NPR. Bassist Almog Sharvit and Alison Shearer (on saxophone and flute) will perform as part of the work-in-progress public performance of “Love Force” at Wesleyan in September 2024.

View upcoming events as part of this residency. 

Photo of Sunny Jain by Ebru Yildiz.
2024
February
2023
September

2024

February

Music Department Colloquium: Sunny Jain—“Never a Dhol Moment: Punjabi rhythms into jazz into story telling”
Thursday, February 8, 2024 at 4:30pm
Adzenyah Rehearsal Hall, Room 003 (Daltry Room), 60 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown
Brooklyn-based composer, performer, drummer, dhol (double-headed drum) player, thought leader, and Visiting Scholar in the Center for the Arts Sunny Jain will give a talk, “Never a Dhol Moment: Punjabi rhythms into jazz into story telling,” as part of the Music Department Colloquium series. 

2023

September

Concert by Sunny Jain’s “Wild Wild East”
Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 2:00pm
Crowell Concert Hall
The Center for the Arts’ 50th Birthday Party kicks off with a free, jubilant performance by Brooklyn-based composer and dhol (double-headed drum) player Sunny Jain's "Wild Wild East,” which has turned the myth of the American West on its head to reflect on his experience as a first-generation South Asian-American and global musician. This performance in Crowell Concert Hall at Wesleyan is the band's Connecticut debut. This event will move indoors due to the forecasted rain.