Jim Santi Owen

Jim Santi Owen is a percussionist, educator, and producer specializing in North and South Indian percussion traditions. A disciple of Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri since 1991, he has studied tabla at the Ali Akbar College of Music, the California Institute of the Arts, and in India. He has also studied South Indian percussion with T.H. Subash Chandran and thavil with K. Sekar. He has performed with artists including Pharoah Sanders, L. Shankar, George Brooks, Pandit Chitresh Das, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet. Owen holds an M.A. in World Music from California Institute of the Arts and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Indian Studies.

In addition to performing, Owen is deeply engaged in arts education, cultural preservation, and arts leadership. He has taught at institutions including the California Jazz Conservatory, Dominican University of California, California Institute of the Arts, and the Ali Akbar College of Music. He previously served as Music Director of the San Francisco World Music Festival and currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Oakland Cultural Affairs Commission. As CEO of Jim Santi Owen Music, Inc., he produced more than 150 world music tracks for Meta’s Sound Collection, collaborating with artists including T.H. Subash Chandran, Selva Ganesh, Ganesh Kumar, Alam Khan, and Sabir Khan; the music has been used in over 16 million pieces of content across Facebook and Instagram.

He is also a key collaborator on the Swapan Chaudhuri Digital Tabla Library, a major archival and pedagogical initiative dedicated to preserving and expanding access to the tabla tradition for future generations.