Watch the video below and ask yourself: is this raga-playing? I don’t think so. No ‘wavy notes’ here, a ‘first requirement’ in raga music. How to really expose a raag’s melodic material in detail if you can’t bend the notes in order to reveal the raag’s mood and character in all its nuances? And running parallel to this problem of execution is the tuning and scale-problem. Only a limited number of ragas is candidate for being ‘adapted’ to the piano. Otherwise: Utsav Lal is definitely very talented and I admire his playing and musical efforts.
Category Archives: Gharana / raga music
Beautiful playing by young carnatic violinist Charumathi Raghuram
Groomed so far mainly by famous violinist T.N. Krishnan, this is Charumathi Raghuram, a young carnatic violinist with an excellent technique and in her playing a delightful, refined expression. With great imagination she plays a wonderful rendition of Akhilandeswari and – according to my taste – she achieves the kind of carnatic violin sound that I personally like best and that I always seek for in this music. Also the overall sound, the recording and amplification are ok here I think. I mention this, because many recordings in this area of music sound pretty bad, if not – if I may say so – horrible, that is, in my ears. For instance, I don’t like the use of big reverb and excessive microphone amplification in raga music, as – regrettably – soo often happens on stage or in studios. An interesting topic for debate and for further musicological investigation.
Kala Ramnath: excerpts from ‘All in one bow’ (2006)
Excerpts from my short film ‘All in one bow – de streken van Kala Ramnath’ (17min.), about Mewati-gharana violinist Kala Ramnath, filmed in september 2005 at my place in Amsterdam. I hope to rework this material (playing and interview) and combine it with other material of Kala’s playing that I shot in 2006, a full concert in Utrecht and a workshop in Rotterdam.
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Awesome footage in documentary about fabulous sitarist Nikhil Banerjee
The exceptional/fabulous & one and only Nikhil Banerjee lived up to his own words: “My approach to music is very deep. I do not believe in compromise. My music is based on spiritualism and was practiced to know the Supreme Truth. A musician must lift up the soul of the listeners.” The footage of Nikhil Banerjee’s playing in the video above – taken from a wonderful documentary by Steven Baigel – wonderfully illustrates his statement. It’s priceless stuff that lifts up my soul ! 🙂
Marvellous mridangam solo by legendary master K. Sivaraman
Some phenomenal playing by K. Sivaraman, the legendary master of mridangam… wow!
German radio WDR3 portrays phenomenal ragasinger Kaushiki Desikan Chakrabarty
On tuesday 23 November 2010 at 23.05 PM German public radiostation WDR3 portrays phenomenal 30-year old (and my favourite) ragasinger Kaushiki Desikan Chakrabarty from Calcutta.
Kaushiki in 2010
Earlier, on 10 November 2010 WDR3 devoted a radio evening on Kaushiki, with a live broadcast of her concert in Bielefeld, a very beautiful performance that was described by renowned ragaspecialist Jan Reichow as “Das außergewöhnlichste, ergreifendste, intelligenteste, fröhlichste, innovativste Konzert Europas”. He’s not exaggerating. Kaushiki has it all and when you hear her live on stage her voice is able to touch your heart and soul deeper than you ever could have imagined… I’m saying this with great conviction as I’m speaking from my own wonderful experiences with hearing Kaushiki live in concert (at the Darbar Festival in 2008 in Leicester, and in 2007 in the Tropentheater in Amsterdam).
Kaushik performing in London in 2005, after she received the BBC3 World Music Award
WDR3 radio provides the following information for the radiobroadcast on 23 November 2010: Kaushiki Desikan Chakraborty gehört zu den großen Talenten der jungen Generation. Im Gegensatz zu früher dürfen Nachwuchskünstler heute schon viel früher ihr Können öffentlich zeigen. Kaushiki ist erst 30 Jahre alt und schon eine anerkannte Sängerin auf den großen Bühnen Indiens. Sie hat eine betörende Stimme und ein für ihr Alter ungewöhnliches technisches Vermögen. Die Pflege der alten Tradition ist ihr erklärtes Ziel. In diesem Sinne ist sie, obwohl jung, eine wertkonservative Künstlerin – mehr noch: sie trägt mit ihrer Haltung zum Überleben des klassischen indischen Geangs bei. Anlässlich ihres Bielefelder WDR-3-Konzerts vor knapp zwei Wochen erzählte Kaushiki unserer Autorin Clair Lüdenbach von ihrer Kunst und aus ihrem Leben.
If you like ragamusic you really should listen on tuesday 23 November at 23.05 PM to this WDR3-radio broadcast devoted to Kaushiki.
WDR3 live-radiobroadcast ragaconcert Kaushiki 10 November 2010 in Bielefeld
Her voice and music are breathtaking and soultouching and of a heartbreaking beauty, to put it mildly.
Kaushiki sings raag Multani in Amsterdam, 2007
In the past couple of years I’ve tried to tell about Kaushiki’s extraordinary musical powers in some of my writings on the web etc , in my programme Gharana and in this radioprogramme. Phenomenal Patiala ragasinger Kaushiki Chakrabarty from Calcutta performs in Bielefeld (Germany) on Wednesday 10 November and this concert will be broadcasted live on WDR3 Radio, starting at 8.05 PM.
Kaushiki sings ‘Yaad Piya Ki Aaye’ in Amsterdam, 2007
I like the way WDR Radio has tried to put in words the qualities of Kaushiki: “Die Sängerin Kaushiki aus Kolkata hat eine phänomenale Stimme und die stupende Fähigkeit, jede Nuance der großen traditionellen Form- und Melodiemodelle perfekt umzusetzen, von expressiven Wendungen, die ins herz treffen, bis zu Läufen und Koloraturen, die mit atemberaubender Geschwindigkeit ablaufen.” A very true, good description.
If you happen to like ragamusic the WDR-radiotransmission is not-to-be-missed!
Kaushiki performs a bhajan in bhairavi, concert in Amsterdam, 2007
Debashish Bhattacharya: de zingende snaren van de Indiase slidegitaar
Een kort artikel van mij -in Mixed No.4 (2008)- over de zingende snaren van de fenomenale slidegitarist Debashish Bhattacharya uit Calcutta en over de Hawaii-India connectie.
Klik enkele keren op de foto hieronder om te vergroten en het artikel te kunnen lezen.
Indiase muziek: recensies van Pieter de Rooij uit 2008
Mijn recensies uit 2008 in het blad Mixed met betrekking tot Indiase muziek. Besproken worden:
* Kaushiki Chakrabarty-Live at Saptak Festival
* Keyvan Chemirani&Anindo Chatterjee-Battements au coeur de l’Orient
* Shastriya Syndicate-Syndicated
* Kala Ramnath-Twilight Strings
* Kadri Kopalnath&Ronu Majumdar-Evolution
* Sasha-Tappa Journey
* Purbayan Chatterjee&Jayanthi Kumaresh-Mandala
Klik op de foto -en daarna nog enkele keren om de foto verder te vergroten- om de recensies te lezen.
NB: het album van Kaushiki Chakrabarty -Live at Saptak Festival- heeft geen sterwaardering omdat de redactie van Mixed besloot hier vanaf nummer 7 mee te stoppen. Het album Live at Saptak Festival van Kaushiki Chakrabarty was overigens mijn nummer-1 favoriet album van het jaar, dus het is -voorzover dat uit mijn bespreking nog niet duidelijk mocht zijn- absoluut een 5-sterrenalbum!
Playing around India : A portrait of Dutch cellist Saskia Rao-De Haas (2002)
Playing around India – A portrait of Dutch cellist Saskia Rao-de Haas, a radio documentary by Pieter de Rooij, produced in 2002. [original Dutch title: Op streek in India – een portret van de Nederlandse celliste Saskia Rao-de Haas]
The documentary is mostly in dutch, but this video offers a transcript in english locked to the timetable, in order to make this production accessible for an international audience. To allow convenient reading of this transcript, you should play the video in HD (1080p).
Production date: May-June 2002. First broadcast by Concertzender on 8 November 2002, also broadcast by Radio Netherlands on 25 and 29 December 2002. Voice narrator: Wim Vriezen.
In the documentary ‘Playing around India’ (produced May-June 2002) programme maker Pieter de Rooij introduces the career of the brilliant 31-year-old (that is, in 2002) cellist Saskia Rao-de Haas. She is one of the very few people, and the only European, to play the classical ragas of North India on the cello. She is considered the only genuine cello soloist by the Indian concert going public. Her virtuosity and deep musicality have introduced a new resonance to Indian music and have been enthusiastically receieved by critics and audiences worldwide. To achieve a proper Indian sound Saskia Rao-de Haas plays on a specially modified cello: smaller (so as to be able to be played sitting on the floor), with five instead of the usual four strings, and with ten ‘sympathetic’ strings. These freely resonating strings give a beautiful Indian sound to the cello and the instrument has quickly become very popular.
For two years (speaking from 2002) Saskia Rao-de Haas has lived in New Delhi with her husband, the famous Indian sitar player Shubhendra Rao. As well as traditional raga improvisations, she and her husband play their own compositions in which they mix classical Indian music with elements from European folkmusic and Western classical music.
In May and June 2002 Saskia and Shubhendra toured outside India when, for the first time, Western audiences were able to hear the combination of sitar and cello in Indian classical music. Programme maker Pieter de Rooij caught up with the couple in Amsterdam where they gave a concert at the KIT Tropen Theatre on 25 May. Saskia talks about her music, her cello and her life in India. Her husband Shubhendra, the violin maker Eduard van Tongeren and her former teacher at the Rotterdam Conservatory, Joep Bor, all have something to say about Saskia’s amazing cello adventure. Recordings from the Amsterdam concert are heard during the documentary.