Biography

Sunny Jain(III)

Music Department
Actor
Soundtrack

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In his first theatrical production, Sunny Jain brings his signature talent for creating immediate community, blurring the lines between performers and audience. Love Force draws on Jains autobiography and family history to dive into the concept of satyagraha (which means insistence or holding firmly to truth). Coined by Mahatma Gandhi during his nonviolent protest against British colonialism in India, and also adapted by B.R. Ambedkar and Martin Luther King Jr. as soul force and love force, satyagraha is both a theory and a method of enveloping the oppressor with compassion.

Music meets storytelling as Jain takes audiences on a deeply personal journey that questions hierarchical systems, religion, and traditions, reflecting on the multiple identities so many immigrant families confront in the process of staying connected to the past and imagining new futures. Combining baraat music (South Asian wedding processionals) which Jain first encountered at an early age, Bollywood classics recalled from his youth in Rochester, New York, and his training in the Black American Music tradition of jazz with teachers such as Kenny Barron, Ted Dunbar and Michael Carvin, the sounds of Love Force reflect the multiplicity of Jains own identities, creating a resonance between these rhythms that perhaps escapes words alone. In doing so, it makes vibrant the power of music to bring unity to audiences, a power of collective effervescence that may be essential in confronting these ongoing systems of oppression.

Creative Team Created and conceived by Sunny Jain Directed and Developed by Katie Pearl Original Lighting & Projection Design by Courtney Gaston

Love Force Musical Ensemble Sunny Jain (dhol, drumset), Alison Shearer (alto saxophone), David Adewumi (trumpet), Armando Vergara (trombone), Julia Chen (keyboards, percussion), Almog Sharvit (bass, percussion).

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Love Force

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The career of Sunny Jain is a celebration of cultural diaspora: deep-rooted tradition that ripples outward, changing - and being changed by - the cultures that it touches. He is a drummer, composer and thought leader. He's toured the globe with the pioneering band he founded in 2008, Red Baraat, with highlight performances at The White House (Obama), London Olympics, Peter Gabriel's Womad festivals. He joined legendary percussionists Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Giovanni Hidalgo & Planet Drum for a reunion show in 2022 at Frost Amphitheater, CA. Jain is Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist and has appeared on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series three times. Twice with Red Baraat (ranked #8 best Tiny Desk by New York Magazine) and most recently with his Wild Wild East band. He was a 2024 Visiting Scholar / Artist in Residence at Wesleyan University in CT, where he developed his first music theatrical show, Love Force. Jain was musical director for London-based, OBIE award winning show, The Jungle, and musical producer for Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding, The Musical. Jain is a 2025 Soho Repertory Theatre Commissioned Artist, a cultural pillar of New York City's theater scene for the past 50 years.