Sitarist Subroto Roy Chowdhury (1942 – 2017) plays Raag Desh, live at De Kosmos in Amsterdam/The Netherlands – May 7th, 1973. Zamir Ahmed Khan plays tabla. Recorded by Henk Braaksma with permission by the artists. This recording is part of my Braaksma tape collection.
Category Archives: Indian Classical Music
Sharmistha Sen – Raga Madhuvanti | House Concert – Haarlem/The Netherlands – May 11th, 1974 (Part 1)
Sitarist Sharmistha Sen plays Raga Madhuvanti. First part of a private recording (taken from my Braaksma Collection) of a house concert in Haarlem/The Netherlands, May 11th, 1974. The photo of Sharmishta Sen was taken during this concert. On tabla: Ananda Gopal Bandopadhyay.
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Echo’s van Ravi Shankar en de sitar-explosie in het Westen – Concertzender-programma uit 2002
Eén van de grootste Indiase musici aller tijden is zonder twijfel sitarspeler Ravi Shankar (1920-2012). In 2002 besteedde de Concertzender in een door mij samengestelde aflevering van het programma Metamorfosen aandacht aan de beroemde sitarspeler die dankzij de Beatles in de jaren zestig een supersterstatus verwierf.
Ravi Shankar heeft een enorm belangrijke rol gespeeld als ambassadeur van de Indiase muziek. De titel van de uitgezonden special – ‘Echo’s van Ravi Shankar en de sitar-explosie in het Westen’ – is niet overdreven. De optredens van Ravi Shankar veroorzaakten destijds een ware sitar-rage en brachten de westerse belangstelling voor Indiase ragamuziek in een stroomversnelling.
In deze uitzending zijn onder andere unieke, door Radio Nederland Wereldomroep gemaakte opnamen van Ravi Shankar te horen uit 1957. Dankzij nauwgezette research werden deze oudste Nederlandse omroepopnamen van Ravi Shankar in januari 2002 ontdekt door Pieter de Rooij, die destijds werkzaam was bij de Wereldomroep als audio-archivaris. Voor meer informatie over de vondst van de Ravi Shankar-opnamen in het Wereldomroep-archief kun je dit artikel en deze video raadplegen.
Samenstelling, tekst en produktie: Pieter de Rooij. Presentatie: ?
One of Holland’s greatest experts on Indian classical music passes away – Felix van Lamsweerde (1934-2021).
I’m saddened by the news of the demise of Felix van Lamsweerde, one of Holland’s greatest experts on Indian classical music. I’ve known Felix for more than thirty years, we often met and spoke each other at ethnomusicological events and at concerts of Indian classical music. He passed away on Saturday 31st of July 2021.
During his career as curator ethnomusicology at the KIT Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam Felix made a huge number of recordings of mostly Indian classical music performances on audio tape, video and film, all of which – along with his writings, photos and other parts of his collection – has moved to the Musicology Department of the University of Göttingen in 2017. Felix van Lamsweerde is also known for his great contributions to promote and popularize Indian classical music in The Netherlands and abroad.
His passing is a huge loss – he will be dearly missed.
RIP, dear Felix.

A Brief Impression Of My Braaksma Indian Classical Music Collection
By the end of 2018 a friend of mine, Henk Braaksma, who’s been collecting Indian Classical Music (ICM) since the late nineteen-fifties, made me an offer to acquire/buy over his fabulous ICM-collection, consisting of mainly lp’s and tapes, containing most interesting and many great recordings in very good quality and everything very well documented and catalogued as well. Of course I was very enthusiastic and I eagerly accepted his offer, which makes me the proud owner of the ‘Braaksma ICM Collection’. In November 2019 I did a short talk on this collection for a small audience of ethnomusicologists/cultural musicologists and I showed them this video during that presentation.