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 Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
Ravi Shankar on the misunderstood India of the 60s John O'Mahony
If Ravi Shankar has one abiding memory of the Monterey pop festival -which took place in the summer of 1967-it is of unfortunate scheduling.
Slated to appear before him was one Jimi Hendrix, then still a relative unknown, but with a growing reputation for ferocious, turbo-charged guitar solos.
"I thought he was fantastic, but very loud," Shankar says now, shaking his head. "And then he would open up a can of gasoline and burn his guitar. People went gaga over it. But for me, the act was the greatest sacrilege possible. I just ran out of there. I told them that even if I had to pay some kind of compensation to get out of playing at the festival, I just couldn't do it." This predicament highlights what has to be one of the most extraordinary and often bizarre career trajectories of any living musician. Now a venerable 88, Shankar is finally saying farewell to Europe with a tour that culminates at the Barbican in London. The door to India It is 50 years since Shankar first travelled to Europe and the US, just as a mania for eastern philosophy was taking hold. John Cage was serving up Zen silence to bemused concert-goers, and hippie pioneer Timothy Leary was defending drug use by claiming membership of an obscure Hindu sect. Shankar found himself embraced by everyone from John Coltrane, who named a son after him, to the violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Most famously, Shankar became the guru who turned George Harrison-and, by extension, the Beatles-on to Indian music, culture and philosophy . When he met Harrison, in 1966, Shankar knew very little of the Beatles' music: he hadn't heard Norwegian Wood, Harrison's first attempt at composition on the sitar. But the two hit it off. "I loved George as a person," Shankar says. "I gave him his first copy of Autobiography of a Yogi and that was where his interest in Vedic culture and Indianness began. To me, he was something like a son." At first, Shankar revelled in the attention that their association brought. "I was admired by these hippies," he says, "and it was wonderful playing at Monterey and Woodstock, performing for half a million people." Mistaken identity But he soon became disillusioned. "I was extremely unhappy about the superficiality of it all, especially the wrong information that Dr Timothy Leary and others were propagating-that everyone in India takes drugs. It was a hodgepodge of Kama Sutra, Tantra, yoga, hash and LSD, while the true spiritual quality of our music was almost completely lost." Today, 40 years hence, he is bidding Europe goodbye. Though this tour is called A Farewell to Europe, Shankar is curiously noncommittal about whether this will be the last time we see him perform. "I've had quite a few ‘farewell tours' over the past few years," he smiles. "It sounds like a publicity stunt, but it isn't really. I love to play for people. But travelling has become a hazard-taking off your shoes in airports, and all that sort of thing. So let's hope that this is my last, though in my heart I hope that it is not".
____________ "I am a dreamer,I collect all the smiles from My yesterday,
Neatly pack them into words and hide them in my heart,
I call them "MEMORIES" Music has no boundary.
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#31 11 Jun 2008 23:49
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
Article added on October 2, 2005
A short history of Indian classical music
Since Ravi Shankar became George Harrison's guru in the 1960s, sitar music has become better known around the globe. He has shaped the Western perception of Indian classical music like nobody else. This article is largely based on his autobiography, Raga Mala, as well as on Robert Maycock's program note of Ravi Shankar's performance at the BBC Proms on August 3, 2005.
The Raga Sangeet system of Indian music has a history of some 2000 years. The roots of Indian classical music are religious and lay in the Vedic hymns of the Hindu temples. According to the traditional teaching, sound is God - Nada Brahma. Through music, human consciousness can be elevated to a degree which allows one to understand the eternal essence of the universe. Indian classical music has "an unbroken history of development, and above all it is a living tradition that still is in the process of evolution", specifies Ravi Shankar.
The Hindustani or North Indian style of music developed after the subcontinent was invaded by the Moguls from the 13th century onwards. In the Mogul empire, cultures derived from Persia and elsewhere merged with local traditions. The indigenous music of India, with its intricate systems of ragas and talas, continued uninterrupted and has become the Carnatic or South Indian style, dominant in the areas never conquered by the Moguls. Whereas in the North, musicians from Persia and India influenced each other and experimented with each others instruments.
Singers led the way in this musical fusion. Over the centuries, hybrid instruments such as the sitar - attributed to Amir Kushroo in the 13th century and modified over the following centuries - have emerged that can match the subtleties and emotional force of the human voice. Initially a courtly music, the Northern style has lost the concise, mathematical perfection and social openness of the South Indian style, but it gained new dimensions.
Originally, all Indian music was sung in Sanskrit. But after the two systems divided, Hindustani music was centered around Hindi and its dialect Brajabhasha, whereas the Carnatic system was mainly influenced by Telegu as well as by Kannadese and Tamil.
Historically, the musical tradition was passed on in gharanas or regional schools or styles of performance in the cities of Northern India, especially through family dynasties of famous teachers and musicians, frequently named after the place where it originated. Today, teaching has often transferred to colleges and conservatoires, but the traditional system through guru-shishya instruction persists, and so do the dynasties. Family members of outstanding musicians such as sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan, flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia, sarangi pioneer Ram Narayan, santoor player Shivkumar Sharma, tabla genius Alla Rakha, sitar player Ravi Shankar and others continue the tradition of classical Indian music, some of them creating a special style of playing an instrument (baaj).
The basics of Indian classical music
India's performing arts - music, dance, drama, and poetry - are based on the concept of Nava Rasa (the nine sentiments). The acknowledged order of these sentiments is as follows: Shringara (romantic and erotic), Hasya (humorous), Karuna (pathetic), Raudra (anger), Veera (heroic), Bhayanaka (fearful), Vibhatsa (disgustful), Adbhuta (amazement), and Shanta (peaceful).
Indian classical music is based on ragas (melody) and talas (rhythm), but not on harmony, counterpoint, modulation, chords, dynamics and other structural elements of Western (classical) music. Furthermore, the tradition of Indian classical music is an oral one. The guru teaches it directly to his disciples. There is no sheet music, no written tradition as in Western music.
The background drone tone accompaniment for the soloists for almost all performances of classical Indian music is provided by the tanpura, a string instrument with no virtuoso function.
The heart of Indian classical music - of both the Hindustani and the Carnatic system - is the raga: the melodic form upon which the musician improvises and which may take hours to develop. The raga framework is established by tradition and nurtured by the leading musicians of the past and present, composer and sitar player Ravi Shankar being one of them.
Ravi Shankar defines ragas as follows: "Ragas are extremely difficult to explain in a few words. Though Indian music is modal in character, ragas should not be mistaken as modes that one hears in the music of the Middle and Far Eastern countries, nor be understood to be a scale, melody per se, a composition, or a key. A raga is a scientific, precise, subtle and aesthetic melodic form with its own peculiar ascending and descending movement consisting of either a full seven note octave, or a series of six or five notes (or a combination of any of these) in a rising or falling structure called the Arohana and Avarohana. It is the subtle difference in the order of notes, an omission of a dissonant note, an emphasis on a particular note, the slide from one note to another, and the use of microtones together with other subtleties, that demarcate one raga from the other."
Each raga is principally dominated by one of the nine rasas (sentiments) mentioned above, although the performer can express additional emotions in a less prominent way. The closer the notes of a raga translate one idea or emotion, the more resounding the effect of the raga. Ravi Shankar adds that "90 percent of Indian music may be improvised", that "a raga is the projection of the artist's inner spirit, a manifestation of his most profound sentiments and sensibilities brought forth through tones and melodies", and that "The spiritual quality and manner of expression [of a Raga] cannot be learned from any book."
Ravi Shankar refers to the Sanskrit saying Ranjayathi iti Ragah, which establishes, that a raga, in order to color the mind of the listener, should be created "not only through the notes and the embellishments, but also by the presentation of the specific emotion or mood characteristic of each raga." In this way, melodies of Indian classical music allow accomplished musicians to express and experience "every human emotion, every subtle feeling in man and nature".
In addition to expressing a particular mood, each raga is also associated with a particular time of day or a season of the year. Each time of the day - before dawn, noon, late afternoon, early evening, late night - is associated with a definite emotion. The cycle of day and night as well as the cycle of the seasons are supposed to be analogous to the cycle of life.
Ragas are based on 72 melas or parent scales. With all their permutations and combinations, one estimates that there are over 6,000 ragas. In addition to the ascending - descending structure (Arohana - Avarohana), a raga has a specific chalan - or characteristic note pattern. This pattern is defined by its principle important note (vadi), its second most important note (samavadi), its main feature known as jan (life) or mukhda (face), and the cluster of a few notes by which a raga is immediately recognizable.
It takes a student many years of sadhana or dedicated practice and discipline under the guidance of a guru to be able to put the breath of life (prana) into a raga. Among the secrets of a vibrant and incandescent performance a teacher imparts to his pupil is the use of shrutis (microtones; Indian music uses smaller intervals than Western music: 22 microtones within an octave), gamakas (sort of glissandi) and andolan (a sway, but not a vibrato).
The talas or rhythmic cycles of a raga are another essential element of Indian classical music. Talas range from cycles of 3 beats to cycles of up to 108 beats. The most popular talas use cycles of 5 to 16 beats. The most important rhythmic factors are the stress on the first beat (sum) and the division in a tala. Talas with the same number of beats my differ from each other in that they use other divisions and accents. For instance, the tala Dhamar has 14 beats, divided into 5+5+4 beats, whereas the tala Chanchar is divided into 3+4+3+4 beats. The most common North Indian cycle, teental, consists of 16 beats in four groups of four beats.
Robert Maycock explains that cycles may "begin and end on the first beat - in Western terms, they run over into the first downbeat of the next, so that the rhythm flows seamlessly. They are the springboard for fantastical games of cross-rhythms, playing against the regular pattern, overlapping and ear-tricking. The intricacy, far beyond anything encountered in European music, becomes second nature to trained performers." He adds: "Once the peak of excitement has been reached, there is usually a formal ending or tihai, a threefold repetition of a short series of phrases within which the final phrase is itself repeated three times."
Ravi Shankar explains: "In vocal music, a drummer will accompany a singer either in slow, medium, or fast tempo at the start of a song in whatever tala the singer chooses. He will do the same when he accompanies an instrumentalist in the gat section of a composition" He adds, that the two-faced drum known as pakhawaj accompanies the traditional Dhrupad-Dhamar form of singing and instrumental performances on the veena, rabab, surbahar, etc. However, today, most vocal and instrumental music is based on the contemporary form called khyal, which is accompanied by the tabla, a two-piece drum. It consists of the right-hand, wooden-bodied tabla and the left-hand, metal-bodied bass-drum bayan or dugga.
Khyal is a further development of dhurap and dhamar and dates from the 13th century. Its origin is attributed to Amir Kushroo. It was further developed by Sultan Hussain Shirki and brought to its ultimate respectability by Sadarang. It has gained in popularity since the late 19th century.
The traditional recital of Indian classical music begins with the alap section, the stately and serene exploration, the gradual and meditative unfolding of the structure, theme and rasa of a chosen raga. It is considered the highest form in Indian music. This slow, introspective and heartfelt beginning is followed by the jor, which adds rhythm to the music and develops the raga's basic theme in innumerable variations. Neither the alap nor the jor are accompanied by the drums. They evolve into the gat, the fixed composition of the raga. The drums enter the rhythmic structure of the gat and its time cycle, the tala. This section is based on the Khyal form. The gat can be anything between 4 and 16 bars of fixed composition. It becomes the vehicle for the musician to return to after his improvisation. The gat accelerates step-by-step and culminates in the jhala portion, which is playful and exciting. The interplay, the dialogue between between sitar and tabla is called Sawal jabab. At the conclusion of a recital, the musicians often choose to play a thumri or dhun, an air or melody in a semi-classical or folk style. It is much freer than the classical one and completely romantic, sensual and erotic.
The Indian classical music artist can only improvise within the format of the raga and tala. "This is why one cannot rightfully compare the improvisation in Indian music with the improvisation of jazz", Ravi Shankar adds, since improvisation in jazz is based on Western harmony and chords. "In Indian classical music one improvises on a theme, either in the form of a song or in a gat based on a chosen raga..., being bound by rules and observing the complex rhythmic structures and time cycles..."
____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#32 31 Aug 2008 11:38
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sur
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
Having mesmerised fans around the world for decades, Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar will bid farewell to Europe by performing a select set of ragas in London tonight for the last time. The 88-year-old sitar maestro, who has been a major force for innovation in Indian classical music, is on a tour to Europe which will culminate at the prestigious Barbican Centre here tonight. His daughter Anoushka will also perform with him. Much of the tour had to be cancelled due to a stomach virus - but Ravi Shankar has now been declared fit and ready to play. In an interview to Guardian newspaper ahead of tonight's performance, Ravi Shankar said he "feels much better now than ever before but his body sometimes lets him down." "My mind, musically... In every sense I feel much better than ever before. But it is the body that sometimes let's met down," he said. Anoushka, who is also a sitar player, said her father has given a new shape and definition to sitar. "He has given a new shape and definition to this instrument over the course of the 20th century," says his daughter Anoushka. "He added the bass string that is quite common now. He created the modern notation system for Indian music. The tabla player was never really an important factor until my father made percussion a central part. A lot of what people now consider Indian music can be traced back to him." Shankar, who began his career at the age of 10 touring the world with his brother Uday's dance troupe, says he might have ended up a dancer if master instrumentalist Ustad Allauddin Khan would not have inspired him. "He used to scold me, saying: 'You will be nothing. You will be jack of all and master of none.' And that shocked me." Shankar spent seven years studying sitar with Khan before emerging in the late 1940s and 50s to become one of India's most celebrated musicians. At 88, he admits that he finds it difficult not to think of his legacy. "Yes, I have considered it," he says. "I sit with Anoushka and give her new things, information that I didn't give her before. That is what happens with our music - it goes on growing, because it is not written down or set in a book." ____________ "I am a dreamer,I collect all the smiles from My yesterday,
Neatly pack them into words and hide them in my heart,
I call them "MEMORIES" Music has no boundary.
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#33 27 Sep 2008 01:08
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sur
Joined: November 2006
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
Sitar Maestro Pt Ravi Shankar on his life and music | From its archives History Talking.com brings another gem of an interview in which the great master talks about his life long love, Sitar. He says there is no need to be afraid of classical music. If parents create right approach even children would love classical music. He is disappointed by the fact that in his concerts in London there are more English people than the NRIs. He began by talking about his early life .
To listen click here  (Hindi) |  |
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____________ "I am a dreamer,I collect all the smiles from My yesterday,
Neatly pack them into words and hide them in my heart,
I call them "MEMORIES" Music has no boundary.
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#34 13 Oct 2008 23:34
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Music
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
Wow Taj! Circa 1966. Sitar maestro Ravi Shanker in Taj suite with a student. A suite, including full board then cost Rs 30. ____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#35 14 Dec 2008 02:11
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
‘I’m glad Zakir has won his first Grammy’ 13 Feb 2009, 0000 hrs IST, TNN  | | Pt ravi Shankar | |
Rahman, with his BAFTA win, has shifted the world’s focus to Hindi film music. Who are the Bollywood composers you think never got the global recognition they deserved?
I’ve admired music directors who have developed instrumental music along with and apart from the songs, like C Ramachandra, Salil Chowdhury, SD and RD Burman and Ilayaraja. I also admire AR Rahman, who’s given such beautiful songs to films. He’s brilliant and I feel happy to see him get recognition and admiration from the west.
Would you say that the Grammy award committee is the right judge of the expertise of an Indian classical musician?
Thanks to my disciple Vishwa Mohan, the Grammy has become famous here. When I received my first two Grammys, neither my country nor I was aware about them. No expertise is needed to judge the difference between good and bad music. A fantastic musician sometimes may not take the award home because of the majority of votes from the members, but a nomination is good enough recognition. I’m sorry that Lakshmi Shankar didn’t win the Grammy this year —she’s a wonderful musician and deserved it. I’m very glad that Zakir got his first Grammy after all this time, which he deserves.
Any plans of India again getting to see you being accompanied by Ustad Zakir Hussain on stage in the near future?
I don’t think so.
One understands that you like to be accompanied by Anoushka at your concerts these days. Is there any chance of us seeing a programme of you with your other disciples?
I feel that the thought process and rapport between Anoushka and myself are unique, which makes me more comfortable. People seem to have a very short memory. Some of my brilliant disciples have accompanied me for several years from the 60s till late 90s. The late Deepak Chowdhury, Kartik Kumar, Shamim Ahmad, Partho Sarathy, Shubhendra Rao and Kartik Seshadri have accompanied and toured with me. Apart from this, promoters everywhere request that I should have Anoush with me to perform. Chicago and Carnegie actually put this clause in the contract now.
____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#36 15 Feb 2009 00:09
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sur
Joined: November 2006
Posts: 10620
Location: Virginia
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
Sitar Maestro Pt Ravi Shankar on his life and music | From its archives History Talking.com brings another gem of an interview in which the great master talks about his life long love, Sitar. He says there is no need to be afraid of classical music. If parents create right approach even children would love classical music. He is disappointed by the fact that in his concerts in London there are more English people than the NRIs. He began by talking about his early life.
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____________ "I am a dreamer,I collect all the smiles from My yesterday,
Neatly pack them into words and hide them in my heart,
I call them "MEMORIES" Music has no boundary.
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#37 16 Feb 2009 00:05
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Music
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
Sitar master Ravi Shankar. ____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#38 13 May 2009 21:32
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
September 12, 1985 MUSIC: SHANKAR AND PHILHARMONICBy DONAL HENAHAN FOR nearly three decades, ever since his first tour of the United States and Europe in the 1956-57 season, Ravi Shankar has served as India's unofficial ambassador for music. He and his sitar - that lovely fretted instrument that looks rather like an archlute's fingerboard with a large gourd attached to either end - have done their best to induct Western concert audiences into the mysteries of India's ancient and intricate classical music, with greater success in some quarters than in others. It was flower-powered youth that really seized on Mr. Shankar as a hero in the 1960's, you will remember. His popularity went clear off the pop charts after the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when he and the eminent Beatle, George Harrison, shared the stage for a memorable set. So, who better better to represent his country in the New York Philharmonic's ''Salute to the Festival of India,'' the gala concert that began the orchestra's new season last evening? Nobody, though a case also might be made for the Philharmonic's music director, Zubin Mehta, who was on hand to lead a program that included the New York premiere of Mr. Shankar's Concerto No. 1 for Sitar and Orchestra. As you might expect, the Indian community was out in force for so signal an event and the night was ablaze with colorful Indian and quasi-Indian female dresses. Musically, the mood, too, was remarkably exotic for a Philharmonic concert. To begin, three drummers and a cymbal player from southern India came on to give a kind of extended percussive fanfare, after which Mr. Mehta conducted a driving, brassy performance of the ''Egmont'' Overture, an inexplicable program choice for such a night. Mr. Shankar, with the assistance of a drummer (the tabla player Alla Rakha) and two droning stringed instruments, gave us a sample of the Grand Tradition. Leading off with what he described as an evening raga whose intent is to promote a mood of peace and purity, he played almost without pause for some 40 minutes, ending with a display of almost giddy virtuosity, in the form called the gat, that found him and Mr. Rakha trading breathtaking rhythmic riffs in ways that a jazz enthusiast could easily enjoy on his own, possibly misguided, terms. However, Indian music such as Mr. Shankar and his colleagues played in this set connects with modern Western music in remarkably few ways. It is almost entirely melodic, based on scale structures rather in the manner of the medieval church modes. It is largely improvised, within definite bounds of the scale pattern chosen. It has neither harmony nor counterpoint and when more than one instrument is at work, as in Mr. Shankar's Sitar Concerto, they generally play in unison. Rigorous thematic development as Western musicians know it does not exist. On the other hand, its varied pulses and rhythmic complications in virtuosic hands can keep the music alive for hours on end. The 40-minute set offered by Mr. Shankar on this occasion would hardly be a tuneup for a serious raga audience. Modulations from one key to another are generally frowned upon, except in certain semiclassical styles, but the Concerto No. 1 did stray purposely from classical paths in this respect. Composed in 1971 on commission from the London Philharmonic, it is the first of two by Mr. Shankar. His second concerto was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and performed here in 1981. Consisting of three movements built on different ragas or scale patterns, No. 1 gave the orchestra some strikingly odd and beautiful sonorities to explore, though the material was never transformed in any way that a Western listener could find interesting. It was, however, still easy enough to enjoy Mr. Shankar's fabled virtuosity and the crafly manner in which he let the orchestra support and highlight it. It proved less easy, I am afraid, to relish Mr. Mehta's slam-bang reading of Ravel's ''Daphnis and Chloe,'' Suite No. 2, which began to explode into climaxes almost at once and hardly let up for a moment. Even the shimmering Impressionism of the Pantomime sounded concerned only with making an opening-night splash. The Program NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC, Zubin Mehta, conductor; Ravi Shankar, sitarist; Festive Drummers from South India. At Avery Fisher Hall. ''Egmont'' OvertureBeethoven Solo raga performed by Mr. Shankar ''Daphnis and Chloe'' Suite No. 2Ravel Sitar Concerto No. 1Shankar FOR nearly three decades, ever since his first tour of the United States and Europe in the 1956-57 season, Ravi Shankar has served as India's unofficial ambassador for music. He and his sitar - that lovely fretted instrument that looks rather like an archlute's fingerboard with a large gourd attached to either end - have done their best to induct Western concert audiences into the mysteries of India's ancient and intricate classical music, with greater success in some quarters than in others. It was flower-powered youth that really seized on Mr. Shankar as a hero in the 1960's, you will remember. His popularity went clear off the pop charts after the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when he and the eminent Beatle, George Harrison, shared the stage for a memorable set. So, who better better to represent his country in the New York Philharmonic's ''Salute to the Festival of India,'' the gala concert that began the orchestra's new season last evening? Nobody, though a case also might be made for the Philharmonic's music director, Zubin Mehta, who was on hand to lead a program that included the New York premiere of Mr. Shankar's Concerto No. 1 for Sitar and Orchestra. As you might expect, the Indian community was out in force for so signal an event and the night was ablaze with colorful Indian and quasi-Indian female dresses. Musically, the mood, too, was remarkably exotic for a Philharmonic concert. To begin, three drummers and a cymbal player from southern India came on to give a kind of extended percussive fanfare, after which Mr. Mehta conducted a driving, brassy performance of the ''Egmont'' Overture, an inexplicable program choice for such a night. Mr. Shankar, with the assistance of a drummer (the tabla player Alla Rakha) and two droning stringed instruments, gave us a sample of the Grand Tradition. Leading off with what he described as an evening raga whose intent is to promote a mood of peace and purity, he played almost without pause for some 40 minutes, ending with a display of almost giddy virtuosity, in the form called the gat, that found him and Mr. Rakha trading breathtaking rhythmic riffs in ways that a jazz enthusiast could easily enjoy on his own, possibly misguided, terms. However, Indian music such as Mr. Shankar and his colleagues played in this set connects with modern Western music in remarkably few ways. It is almost entirely melodic, based on scale structures rather in the manner of the medieval church modes. It is largely improvised, within definite bounds of the scale pattern chosen. It has neither harmony nor counterpoint and when more than one instrument is at work, as in Mr. Shankar's Sitar Concerto, they generally play in unison. Rigorous thematic development as Western musicians know it does not exist. On the other hand, its varied pulses and rhythmic complications in virtuosic hands can keep the music alive for hours on end. The 40-minute set offered by Mr. Shankar on this occasion would hardly be a tuneup for a serious raga audience. Modulations from one key to another are generally frowned upon, except in certain semiclassical styles, but the Concerto No. 1 did stray purposely from classical paths in this respect. Composed in 1971 on commission from the London Philharmonic, it is the first of two by Mr. Shankar. His second concerto was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and performed here in 1981. Consisting of three movements built on different ragas or scale patterns, No. 1 gave the orchestra some strikingly odd and beautiful sonorities to explore, though the material was never transformed in any way that a Western listener could find interesting. It was, however, still easy enough to enjoy Mr. Shankar's fabled virtuosity and the crafly manner in which he let the orchestra support and highlight it. It proved less easy, I am afraid, to relish Mr. Mehta's slam-bang reading of Ravel's ''Daphnis and Chloe,'' Suite No. 2, which began to explode into climaxes almost at once and hardly let up for a moment. Even the shimmering Impressionism of the Pantomime sounded concerned only with making an opening-night splash. The Program NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC, Zubin Mehta, conductor; Ravi Shankar, sitarist; Festive Drummers from South India. At Avery Fisher Hall. ''Egmont'' OvertureBeethoven Solo raga performed by Mr. Shankar ''Daphnis and Chloe'' Suite No. 2Ravel Sitar Concerto No. 1Shankar ____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#39 03 Jul 2009 00:12
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
 | | | | I wasn't a pop star: Pandit Ravi Shankar Press Trust of India Thursday, December 17, 2009 (London) 
| | | Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar has put the onus on The Beatles for turning him into a Pop Star because he hated life as a famous musician.
The 89-year-old Indian musician shot to global stardom after the Fab Four cited him as an inspiration and he became close friends with George Harrison.
"All four came. All of them were very sweet but George was so special. He met me a few times and then I started teaching him. And that news spread all over. That did help me. When people say that George Harrison made me famous, that is true in a way," Pandit Ravi Shankar said.
As per reports, the Bharat Ratna awardee later went on to grab three Grammy Awards and also performed at the legendary Woodstock music festival in New York in 1969. However, Ravi Shankar hated the world of rock 'n roll and blames his connection with the Beatles for thrusting him into the spotlight.
"Then I became a pop star all of a sudden. All young people, bearded, long hair, wearing beads and not normal. And I was not happy at all. I would tell George, 'What have you done?'" Ravi Shankar, who engaged in Western music by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra was particularly taken aback by the crowd at Woodstock and especially British rock band 'The Who'.
"I saw them kicking the instruments, burning the guitars and doing obscene things. It was all drugs and nobody normal there - the audience or the people on stage. I said I was cancelling my program," he said. "It was raining, there was mud all over. And who was listening to music? They (the crowd) were all stoned and they were enjoying it. What I was not happy about was that they gave me all the adoration and I was like a pop star. They all would sit down and say, 'Tell us guru'. And I said, 'I am not your guru," Ravi Shankar added.
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____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#40 18 Dec 2009 00:39
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Music
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
Ravi Shankar Debuts First Symphony at Age 90Updated: 1 day 23 hours ago Theunis Bates Contributor AOL News LONDON (July 1) -- "East is East," Rudyard Kipling once said, "and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." If the "Jungle Book" author had met Ravi Shankar, he'd have realized that he was talking utter nonsense. The sitar virtuoso has spent much of the past 50 years educating Western listeners about the classical sounds of India, often through collaborations with artists as diverse as The Beatles' George Harrison, composer Philip Glass and jazz saxophonist and flautist Bud Shank.
Now at age 90, Shankar is about to unveil his most ambitious East-West concoction yet. The world music guru's first-ever symphony will have its premiere tonight, in the British capital with the London Philharmonic and Shankar's sitar-playing daughter, Anoushka.
 Bikas Das, AP Ravi Shankar, here at a 2009 performance in India, is to present his first-ever symphony Thursday in London. His daughter, Anoushka, left, will also take part.
"This was conceived entirely for the Western symphony orchestra, so I had to eliminate the traditional Indian instruments but transfer some of their spirit on to the Western instruments," Shankar told BBC radio this morning. "I wrote it in Indian notation, which David Murphy, who is a student of mine and a wonderful conductor, has interpreted very well."
Listeners unfamiliar with the strange structures of Indian classical music are likely to find tonight's performance to be an auditory education. Shankar told the BBC that, unlike many European or American classical works, his symphony doesn't follow a set narrative, but instead weaves through a "very abstract" structure. Each of the piece's four movements "are based on different ragas," the hypnotic melodic modes that dominate Indian classical music.
For Shankar, the symphony is a logical conclusion to his past experiments with Western forms. Together with Yehudi Menuhin he crafted the Duet for Sitar & Violin -- which showed the connections between Eastern European folk and the classical traditions of northern India -- and worked with composer-pianist Andre Previn on the Concerto for Sitar & Orchestra. Conductor Murphy hints that, while Shankar may be 90, his latest collaboration places him at the cutting edge of a new genre fusing the best of East and West. "It now really does seem like a new 'Indo-Classic' musical genre is being born," Murphy writes on his blog. "I believe it will be a very important musical journey in the next few years, bringing both musical cultures closer together whilst keeping the purity of both traditions intact." ____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#41 04 Jul 2010 00:16
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Music
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
Sunday, January 17, 2010, PTI  New Delhi: Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, often credited with taking Hindustani classical music to the world, feels that despite the rich tradition of soulful ragas it has not been able to reach the masses. "All our great musicians played in palaces and the common man never had a chance to listen to them. Hindustani classical, thus, became music for the elite," Pandit Ravi Shankar told reporters. "You cannot force it on the masses but when you compare it with the popularity of Carnatic music you have to see that there are more people acquainted with the latter as it was performed in temples," he added.
The 89-year-old musician, while delivering a lecture on `Music and Peace` at the Amity University, also said that to make Hindustani classical more appealing to the future generations it should be introduced at the kindergarten level.
"Music should be taught at the kindergarten level so that children are not afraid of it when they grow up and don`t feel that it is being forced upon them. In fact, about 25 years ago when I was nominated for the Rajya Sabha I had expressed this opinion," Pandit Ravi Shankar said.
However, the veteran musician feels that times have changed and now more people are developing a taste for Hindustani classical.
"Things have changed now and I feel happy to perform in mass gatherings. But listeners should develop a taste to the music. If children have training of basic classical music they will have natural appreciation. You must have a background and training to understand it as it is not massical music, its classical music," he added.
Even after playing the sitar for decades, Pandit Ravi Shankar, who was awarded India`s highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna in 1999, feels he gets the same kick when he
first started playing.
"I started playing sitar at the age of ten and Music gives me the feeling of getting slightly drunk but even at this age I am learning. My guru Baba Alauddin Khan, the greatest musician I have ever known, is no more but Swayambhu (self manifestation) still takes place," he said.
With his daughter Anoushka now taking the legacy forward with a youthful fervor Ravi Shankar admits he does not guide her but has allowed Anoushka to create her own path.
"We discuss music with each other but she is a person of today and I don`t have the foolishness to govern her life.
Anoushka has multi-faceted talents as a musician, dancer and an actress. I have giver her my `Vidya` (knowledge) but she belongs to today," Ravi Shankar said.
"When someone dies he leaves his music behind, it`s a great loss that musicians like Bismillah Sahab is no more. But when a tree grows it reaches a point when it perishes. Then a small tree also grows up and how do you know they won`t grow bigger," he added.
With the trio of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Ustad Zakir Hussein and A R Rahman being nominated to this years Grammys`, Pandit Ravi Shankar who is a three time Grammy-award winner feels that any award is important for a musician.
"I really think that any award is a good feeling be it big or small. I am very happy for those who have been nominated for the Grammys` and I wish them all the best," he said.
PTI
____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#42 05 Jul 2010 23:22
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Music
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
Ravi Shankar - Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Mon 22 Aug Date: 24 August 2011Written by: Henry NorthmoreA mesmerising show of classical Indian music as part of 2011 EIF 
Ravi Shankar crossed over into popular culture with his associations with various 60s musicians, working with and/or influencing the likes of The Beatles, The Kinks and The Byrds. Going on to play at iconic festivals such as Woodstock and The Monterey Pop Festival. He may have distanced himself from the hippie movement in the 70s but his take on classical Indian music left an indelible mark. The Edinburgh International Festival have scored a real coup with a rare live performance from Shankar, marking his first performance in Edinburgh for over 20 years. At the age of 91 there is a worry that this might be a muted or even embarrassing performance, the crowd hushed as the aged Shankar shuffles on stage, his voice almost inaudible as he introduces the first raga. But when he picks up his sitar and strikes up the first note all fears are allayed. Seated on Indian rugs with six fellow musicians (many of them his students) cross-legged before him they follow his lead, opening with a light prayer that builds into a delicate multilayered piece as sitar, flute and tabla combine. Next is a piece of his own composition, followed by a short traditional piece to commemorate Krishna’s birthday, before a final longer piece clocking in at over half an hour that rises and falls with subtle grace. There is nothing condescending about the audiences applause and standing ovation, perhaps his playing isn’t as sharp as before but it’s still instantly evocative of another world, deeply hypnotic and sharing much with jazz in its improvisation and deft musicianship. Shankar may be a humble figure but he’s still a master player. ____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#43 24 Aug 2011 23:23
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Music
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
latimes.com Ravi Shankar still making magic sitar music at 91Jordan Riefe Reuters September 23, 2011 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Baby boomers may remember classical sitar player Ravi Shankar from his legendary appearances at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock, or his influence on popular music culture at the time.
But what the 91-year-old musical icon remembers most about Monterey was hearing live rock 'n' roll for the first time. It was loud, he recalls, and he walked out on Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar.
The three-time Grammy winner appears for one night, September 29, in Los Angeles at the Disney Concert Hall, and ahead of the show he spoke to Reuters about his music, his memories of the '60s and his friendship with late Beatle George Harrison.
Q: You collaborated with many high-profile Western artists in the past. In what direction are you taking your music now?
A: "Mostly I'm playing concerts. I just finished five concerts in Europe, in London, Birmingham and the Edinburgh Festival, then I went to Oslo, Norway. I finished those and now I'm looking forward to playing San Francisco and Escondido."
Q: What's on the program for the Disney Hall show?
A: "I always decide what I will play at the last moment, but I can tell you the format. I always start with very traditional classical music. The first I think will be very traditional almost dating back to 16th century. The second is a more later development known as contemporary-classical music. Another raga, an Indian raga. It's more popular, not in the pop sense, but it's a more popular second song. Of course the form we play is known as raga. Popular music with a lot of rhythmic variations."
Q: Can I take you back to the Monterey Pop Festival? It was a landmark concert and introduced you to your largest American audience. What are your memories of that show?
A: "I'll tell you very frankly, I went to see the whole night show with people like Jimi Hendrix and The Who, Simon and Garfunkel, Otis Redding, the Mamas and the Papas, all these people were performing. This was my first orientation to listening in person to live performances of rock 'n' roll. It was very loud for me. I'm not used to such loud music.
"But when The Who started breaking their instruments after the songs, and they are kicking them and breaking all the instruments -- and Jimi Hendrix, after a wonderful performance, which I was so impressed with, then he took off his guitar and then he put benzene on the guitar and burned it. That I could not take. I just walked out and said, "I won't be here."
Q: But two years later at Woodstock, you did it all again.
A: "It was a horrible experience because it was raining. We went by helicopter, which landed behind the stage. There were a half a million people, it was raining, drizzling, there was mud everywhere and everybody was, most of them, were high on drugs, y'know. And this was very difficult for my instrument, and I was not happy because of the whole environment."
Q: Still, you gained fame in the West from those events
A: "There was one issue that always bothered me. They mixed my music with drugs and all that type of free love and everything. That's what I objected to. I wanted to bring them consciousness of our music to relate to like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart -- you don't go to hear a concert being on grass or misbehaving like that."
Q: Did you ever express that to an audience?
A: "I said, 'I don't want to be treated -- or my music -- to be treated like that.' So I, many a times, would walk out of my concerts until they stopped smoking and behaved properly. I didn't want to reach them on drugs, but I did want to play them our music, our Indian classical music which connected more with -- not religion but a more spiritual energy."
Q: Your introduction to the rock world came through George Harrison. What brought the two of you together for the 1971 benefit concert for Bangladesh?
A: "I was in Los Angeles at that time and I was thinking of giving a concert or two, raising as much as I could, and help them. George came to my house and said, 'Let's do it in a bigger way and raise as much as we can.' He phoned Bob Dylan and all his friends, and the show happened. One show sold out immediately, so they had another show in the afternoon. The crisis became known around the world within 24 hours."
Q: Harrison studied sitar under you before composing "Norwegian Wood" and "Within You Without You," both of which used the instrument. Was George a good student?
A: "He was a wonderful student, he was like my family, my friend and we had a wonderful time. He flew into Mumbai in 1974 and 1975 where I had a festival for 45 minutes with my musicians, and after intermission he had his group and he helped promote the concert all over the United States. He was a wonderful friend."
(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#44 24 Sep 2011 05:39
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Music
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Re: Ravi Shankar Sitar Maestro
The Sunday Conversation: Ravi ShankarBy Irene Lacher, Special to the Los Angeles Times: March 18, 2012 Ravi Shankar discusses his show at Long Beach's Terrace Theater, George Harrison, daughter Norah Jones, Philip Glass and more. Sitarist-composer Ravi Shankar at his U.S. home in Encinitas, Calif. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) Ravi Shankar, 91, India's most famous classical musician in the West since his collaborations with Beatle George Harrison and violinist Yehudi Menuhin in the 1960s, makes an infrequent concert appearance when he performs at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach on March 25.
Tell me about your upcoming concert. What do you have planned?
I do my usual performance, the Indian classical music, playing on my sitar. And I have the usual accompaniment of drums and a drone instrument. Also, this is going to be a very interesting program because the first half is a short recital by someone who happens to be my sister-in-law, a very famous singer called Lakshmi Shankar. She'll sing a few very interesting religious songs and things like that for the first 40 minutes, and I take over the second half. Apart from my drum and drone instrument, I've got three more instruments to list — a wonderful flute player, a sitar player who's a student of mine and the third one playing a very interesting drum.
Will you be playing your own compositions?
Most of them are my own, but they're all based on Indian classical ragas — melody forms, very ancient. We improvise on them and I compose also on them. It will be based on classical Indian music, but mostly my own compositions.
Your musical style is considered distinct from that of your peers. How is it distinct?
We have this classical format like you have your composers, like Bach, and people play exactly what they wrote. It's the written-down music system. We don't have that written-down system, but our system is very scientific. It follows ragas — melody forms — and one is free to play a raga maybe for three hours, but you can make it as short as 15 minutes, even 10 minutes, and these are all my way of presenting to the West. It's like editing in films. So I give the whole gamut of our classical music, starting with the 13th century or so, which has been taught orally. It's not written-down music, so we have the freedom to improvise. And each time it comes out as new. That's why it's always fresh. I never feel like I've been repeating myself.
How have collaborations with Western composers like Philip Glass affected your artistic development?
Before that I played with Yehudi Menuhin and Jean-Pierre Rampal. I compose pieces based on ragas and taught them and sometimes played along with them. The same thing I have done with Philip Glass, but with Philip Glass, it has been different. He gave me four lines of his composition, and I give him about four lines and he did whatever he wanted to do on the basis of the four lines that I gave him, and I did the same with his. That was more of an experimental thing. It cannot be classified as classical music of India. It was more of an innovation, an attempt to bring out something beautiful.
How long have you lived in Encinitas, and why did you settle in Southern California?
The main reason was I have been touring all my life, spending time in London, Paris, New York, but because of health reasons, I preferred California and especially this area. I fell in love with it here. It's such a beautiful spot, and the climate is fantastic. We came to this place in '92.
Do you still tour?
I don't do as much as I did, but still 12 to 15 performances a year in the States, Europe and India. I love to do it, and there's a demand for me, so as much as I can, I do it.
You were an organizer of last month's Indian Music and Dance Festival in Delhi.
In our center, every year, we have a four-day festival for which I get young musicians and elder, established musicians. It started in memory of George's birthday. We still keep that day, starting on Feb. 24. Every year we do that.
I miss him very much.
What do you remember most about him?
We became very, very dear to each other in the sense that it started with my teaching him sitar. And then gradually I saw his interest in Indian religion and more than religion, actually, philosophy and the old culture. And I helped him get many books to read, and that's how it started. And he got so deep into it and he was so sincerely in love with India and the Indian religion, because he was more into the philosophical aspect of the old system. This plus music, we became such good friends. He became like part of me.
You've toured with your daughter, Anoushka, who also wrote a book about you.
I started teaching her how to play sitar from the time she was about 9 years old. By the time she was 13 or 14, she started sitting with me in concerts and gradually, we played so many concerts together. She's my best student, I can say without any hesitation.
What is your relationship like with your other daughter, Norah Jones?
Wonderful. She's on her own. I love her. These are like my two eyes, really.
Do you think you might ever perform with Norah?
I don't know. I don't think so because it's completely a different world, what she does. She was born here, grew up here and her music is American music. It's so beautiful, there's no need to do that, just for the sake of sitting together. But maybe we'll just fool around and do something together.
How many students do you currently have?
I have not taken students in quite a while, but I have two or three still. Many come to me, but I take only those with very special talent and the urge to work.
Do you think about the legacy you'd like to leave?
It sounds very big. I'd like to leave a legacy where some of my students — I won't say all — have love and respect for our music. That's a fundamental thing I'd like them to understand, not just a way of making a living or a lot of name, but go deep into music and keep it alive. To keep an age-old culture with its depth, its feeling, its whole aspect is not very easy. Because now especially the world has become so commercial — it is do it now as soon as you can, make a name, make a record. So whether it is classical Western or Indian, I think it has the same problem. It's hard in these modern days to have students who have the love and respect for the tradition.
____________ Music forms a part of me again It gives Shape to my faceless Expressions...To my Thoughts. {Alochana}
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#45 18 Mar 2012 12:47
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Radio
November 4, 2006 
