Sitar.co.za

News and Events

2008 06 21

Abhik Mukherjee - Raag Darbari

A very impressive alap in possibly the most difficult of all raags, Darbari, by a very promising young sitarist, Abhik Mukherjee.

The following text is from Abhik Mukherjee’s website:

ABHIK MUKHERJEE hails from the great Etawah - Imdadkhani Gharana of sitar and surbahar among the younger generation. Initiated into sitar, at the age of six, by his father Sri Tarit Kumar Mukherjee and Sri Bimal Chatterjee & simultaneously received vocal training from Sri Kalyan Bose. He is presently taking Talim under Pandit Kashinath Mukherjee (a leading disciple of Sitar Maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan and vocalist Ustad Amir Khan Saheb). He is also taking Talim from Pandit Arvind Parikh.

He made his first stage performance at the Governor’s House, Kolkata at the age of nine and earned applause from the audience including the Governor of West Bengal Late Mr. Nurul Hasan. Till date, he has attended many conferences throughout India and abroad.

You can find out more at www.abhikmukherjee.com.  There are many more videos of Abhik Mukherjee available on YouTube, and you can find them here.

View/Add Comments (1)

2008 06 21

Impressions of Kolkata

Photographer Kishori Ray has released a musical slideshow of photographs taken in the winter of 2008 at Lake Market, Kolkata.  The soundtrack features the music of Abhik Mukherjee playing the morning raag, Ahir Bhairava. Unfortunately the piece gets cut off far too soon at the end, but it’s lovely while it lasts

For more information on Kishori Ray and this video, visit his YouTube page.  You can find out more about sitarist Abhik Mukherjee at his website.

View/Add Comments (0)

2008 06 20

Clem Alford

For many us (the author of this post included!) Clem Alford’s “The Sitar Manual” was discovered as a revalation at the back of dusty library and clung to and treasured as one of the few precious sources of information about the instrument we love.  Sadly, the book has been long out of print, but, along with Manfred Junius’s book is one of the few sources of published information on learning the sitar for the beginner.  Of course, infomation about the sitar is much more widely available now on the internet, but many of us students from pre-internet days owe Clem Alford a great debt of gratitude for being among the first to introduce us this magical instrument.

What some may not know, is that Clem Alford is also a superb sitarist.  The inimitatble Trippy Monkey has released this great video from his archive, which showcases Clem Alford’s talents on UK TV in the mid-eighties

Clem also played sitar for the 70’s era psychdelic folk-rock band Magic Carpet

Of course, Clem is still playing, teaching and performing.  He released this more recent video of himself playing a short alap in raag Charukeshi:

For much more information and music, check out Clem Alford’s MySpace page.  You can also visit Magic Carpet’s MySpace page which includes many songs featuring Clem Alford’s playing.

View/Add Comments (0)

2008 06 18

Sitar + Autorickshaw, by ms-39

Musician ms-39 has released a charming video featuring a sitar, tabla and guitar track.  The video is taken from the inside of an autorickshaw, and ms-39 plays all of the instruments himself.

For more music by ms-39, please visit:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=masahoro

http://www.myspace.com/masa39

http://players.music-eclub.com/?action=user_detail&user_id=84147

View/Add Comments (0)

2008 06 17

David Courtney’s “Nature’s Path”

A beautiful short video by musician and filmmaker David Courtney. It features David performing raag Chandrakauns on the dilruba.

The accompanying text by David Courtney is from the video’s YouTube site.

This short film straddles the line between being a nature film and being a music video. It was shot entirely on location in Houston Texas.

This piece was basically an exercise for me. I am very new to videography and was not really comfortable with the ends and outs of FinalCut software. This piece allowed me to stretch things a bit in terms of seeing what I could do with it. It was also an exercise to see if I could break with the normal way of doing a music video. For instance the main musical performance was not recorded in a studio, but was recorded live. (This was done with a shotgun mic located about three feet from the instrument.)

This was also a personal exercise for me. A few months before this footage was shot, I developed some heart problems. These problems necessitated me going into the hospital and having a stent put in. As I was recovering I would talk to other people who had similar health issues and I was struck by the common habit of such people of avoiding going off alone for fear that they may have an attack. I always found myself very uncomfortable with this viewpoint. What I found discomforting was that I could actually relate to it, but I knew that if I succumbed to this sort of thinking, the rest of my life would be completely empty.

...Continue Reading Article

View/Add Comments (0)

2008 06 17

The Raga Newsletter Vol 1 - June 2008

Sitar.co.za is privileged to be hosting Vol. 1 of Nisaar Pangarker’s “The Raga Newsletter”

Dear Friends and Lovers of Indian Classical Music,

This is my first attempt at writing a newsletter of sorts. I thought it necessary to make contact with all the Indian classical music aficionados out there. I will try to make this a bi-monthly effort to spread the news, views, and word of Indian Classical Music, depending on my time constraints.

Review

So what’s been happening recently? Let’s focus at home first. Over the last year we have not seen or heard much locally. The last big tour was Raga on 200 Strings featuring Pt Shivkumar Sharma on santoor, with Rahul Sharma, Anindo Chatterjee and Bhawani Shankar. Amazing how fast times goes. Exactly a year ago, I was frantically busy with this tour. Let me take this opportunity of thanking all of you who supported this concert tour and made it an overwhelming success. I can assure you that the artists enjoyed it as much as you all did. Later in 2007, Shujaat Khan did his annual pilgrimage to Durban, thanks to his host there. Other than that, the local scene has been quiet with no further international acts.

In December the classical concert season starts in India with festivals all over the country. All the Indian artistes who spend most of their year abroad, make every effort to play on these festivals in India. This reconnects them with their homebase and reminds the indigenous Indian audiences that they are still

...Continue Reading Article

View/Add Comments (34)

2008 06 17

Feature Concert Video: Ravi Shankar on UK TV

Thanks to archivist Trippy Monkey for this great concert video of Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha performing on UK television in 1984.

View/Add Comments (0)

2008 06 13

Annapurna Devi - Rare Recording

The video below features a rare recording of enigmatic sitar and surbahar player, Annapurna Devi (b. 1926).  Despite the poor quality of the recording, the quality of the musicianship and level of technical proficiency is beyond comparison.  And, keep in mind that she’s playing the surbahar, not the sitar.  It’s astounding.

Although Annapurna Devi rarely performs in public and very few of her recordings exist, she has some very famous students, including Hariprasad Chaurasia.  She still lives and reportedly teaches at her apartment in Breach Candy, Mumbai.

Here’s another superb recording of her playing raag Kaushika (requires Real Player).  You can find a few more of these recordings on her Wikipedia entry, and Mohan D. Nadkarni has written an interesting article which recounts his meetings with her.

View/Add Comments (0)

2008 06 12

Kartik Kumar - 10 Sitar Concerto

An incredibly rare archival film of Kartik Kumar’s 10 sitar concerto has just been unearthed on YouTube.  It’s an unusual and very beautiful showcase of different styles of Indian music.  The film looks like it might have been from the 60’s or 70’s, but it’s very difficult to tell.  If anyone has any more information about this work, please leave a comment.

View/Add Comments (0)

2008 06 09

Quality Sitar Construction

As anyone who’s ever gone shopping for a new sitar knows, sitar construction quality is very hit and miss.... sadly, mostly miss!  How to judge the good sitars from the just OK to downright terrible?
Rain City Music has published an excellent article on what goes into the construction of a good quality sitar.  You can read the article here.

What’s the best sitar you’ve ever played? What was the worst? Leave a comment and let us know, we’d love to hear your stories.

View/Add Comments (0)

Page 7 of 9 pages « First  <  5 6 7 8 9 >