Asadali (Ali) Pyarali Bandeali
Asadali is a DC-based percussionist whose sound blends orchestral precision, Middle Eastern dynamism, and South Indian complexity. Rooted in Islamic aesthetic practices yet driven by exploration, his work moves between concert traditions and vernacular music-making. His lifelong work-in-progress is to serve artists by channeling sound in ways that invite moments of contemplation and wonder: first for himself, and in turn for listeners.
Raised in Texas, Asadali honed his skills in marching and orchestral percussion, becoming a three-time Texas All-State musician and principal percussionist of the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. He toured the U.S. with the Cavaliers Drum & Bugle Corps during their world championship season before leaving the University of Texas Butler School of Music to study finance and co-founding Dhoom, a South Asian percussion ensemble.
His career has taken him to live in Turkey, France, Ghana, Pakistan, and South Africa, where the sounds of these places shaped his evolving voice. His performance credits include the Moslem Alipour Ensemble, Charlottesville Symphony, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Washington Revels (featured artist), and Silkroad Ensemble’s Global Musician Workshop at New England Conservatory, where he studied and performed with Jamey Haddad, Ara Dinkjian, and Abeer Nehme. He is currently a member of GongSa, a trio with Qi Yu (guzheng) and Ami Dang (sitar). Asadali has also scored music for short films, including Conference of the Moths, which is being screened at festivals in the U.S., South Africa, Tanzania, Indonesia, and India.
His teachers include Lauren Vogel Weiss, Oray Yay, Karthikeyan Ramanathan, Glen Velez, and Engin Kaan Günaydın, among many strangers-turned-friends who have shared their music with him along the way. Outside of music, Asadali is a senior policy analyst at the Federal Reserve Board and holds an MBA from Yale University. His study of global political economy grounds his musicality in questions of power, balance, and connections within complex systems. He is represented by T·H·E Artist Agency for modeling work, which informs his awareness of the body as the primary instrument, shaping performance through presence.