Short report on raga playing cellist Saskia de Haas, featured in Roughly Speaking, Radio Netherlands Worldwide/Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, 2002

Short report by Pieter de Rooij on raga playing cellist Saskia de Haas, featured in European youth lifestyle programme Roughly Speaking (hosted by Max Ohlenschlager), for Radio Netherlands Worldwide/Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, 2002.


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From the Peter van Hoboken Collection : beautiful S. Balachander veena recital-folder from the sixties

Earlier today I published a short message on great footage – published on YouTube – of veena player S. Balachander. In addition to this I thought it’d be nice to show a folder used for one of his concerts in the sixties.

Front- and backpage of the veena recital-brochure (click on the picture to enlarge, twice for extra large)

I found this beautiful veena recital-brochure in the Peter van Hoboken papers at Radio Netherlands, a small, but very fine collection I try to write about now and then.

Inside pages of the veena recital-brochure (click on the picture to enlarge, twice for extra large)

I don’t know how Van Hoboken did get this folder, but it seems to me it was either sent to him or he visited a concert of veena maestro S. Balachander himself. Neither the date, nor the location of the concert recital are mentioned, but I guess it was used to inform an audience in India, since the folder was printed in Madras.

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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.

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Artikel uit 2002 nav vondst Wereldomroep-opnamen Ravi Shankar uit 1957

Hieronder een stukje dat ik schreef voor het personeelsblad van de Wereldomroep nav mijn sensationele vondst op 4 januari 2002 in het Wereldomroeparchief van tot dan toe anoniem weggeborgen opnamen uit 1957 van Ravi Shankar. Zie hierover ook mijn video op Youtube. Ravi Shankar speelde op maandagmiddag 27 mei 1957 – zo heb ik achterhaald – bij de Wereldomroep twee stukken: Raag Tilak Shyam en een Dhun (volksmelodie), met begeleiding van Chatur Lal op tabla en Nodu Mullick op tanpura. In 2002 heb ik de opnamen laten horen in een door mij geproduceerde special over Ravi Shankar voor De Concertzender en enkele jaren daarna zijn de opnamen ook uitgezonden door de NPS-radio.
Klik op de foto hieronder (en daarna opnieuw om verder te vergroten) om mijn korte artikel te lezen.

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In de VPRO-Gids (Nr.8, 2002) werd ook aandacht besteed aan mijn vondst. Klik op de foto hieronder om een kort VPRO Gids-artikel te lezen over een door mij geproduceerde Ravi Shankar radiospecial voor de Concertzender, waarin de historische Wereldomroepopnamen voor het eerst op de radio te horen waren.

shankar_vpro-2002

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Youtube-video on my find of Ravi Shankar recordings from 1957

Ravi ShankarMy latest Youtube-video is concerned with a sensational find I did of a recording of Ravi Shankar, made by Radio Netherlands in 1957. I did this find already in January 2002. It might be nice for viewers of my Youtube-channel who are interested in Indian classical music to learn about this interesting historical recording. For more details, see the ‘more info’-section attached to the Youtube-video .

Radio Netherlands and All India Radio join forces at Amsterdam India Festival

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During the Amsterdam India Festival -from 12 november to 30 november 2008- Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) and All India Radio (AIR) work together for the first time in their english language reports. It’s the beginning of a partnership that will enable Continue reading

Listen to the Radio Netherlands Historical Audio Archive on the web!


In my work as an archivist at Radio Netherlands I deal with all kinds of audio-material. Apart from a huge record and cd collection, other treasures of the archives are the many thousands of music recordings done by Radio Netherlands (mostly western classical music, but also other genres like jazz and world music) and many thousands of music programmes and all kinds of spoken word programmes. Some of the oldest material is on 78rpm-records, but the vast majority is on tape. All this material is being digitized, and now selections of it are published and can be listened to on the web.
 

 one of the Radio Netherlands Worldwide logo’s

Besides regular news the spoken word programmes are concerned with big national events, dutch society, literature, art, royalty, economy, religion etc., all produced and broadcasted since the birth of Radio Netherlands in 1947. Altogether the Audio Archives of Radio Netherlands provide a unique perspective on the world at large and on the social, cultural and economic dimensions of dutch society since 1947. Since we’re talking about World Radio here, not only in dutch, but also in english, spanish, portuguese, french, surinamese, bahasa indonesia, afrikaans and arabic. 

  

For Holland the Radio Netherlands Archives have always been a sort of ‘hidden treasure’, but recently things have changed. All material is being digitized now and selections are now retrievable/available via internet, thanks to my colleague Martien Sleutjes who’s keeping a weblog and adding material on a daily basis. Though it may concern only selections, among them are real treasures. So, if you’d like to find out how Radio Netherlands reported about the world and dutch society in the past 60 years in different languages, take a dive in the Radio Netherlands Archives and start listening. You’ll be surprised by what you’ll find there, and there’s coming up more all the time!


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