Author Archives: Madanmohan Rao
Madanmohan RaoMadanmohan RaoMadanmohan RaoMadanmohan Rao
A historic concert was held on February 7th 2012 : the farewell performance to the city of Bangalore by sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka Shankar. The concert ‘Farewell to Bangalore’ was organised by the Premanjali Education Trust as a fundraiser for their various projects. Its past concerts have featured vocalists Bhimsen Joshi and Balamuralikrishna in a duet. At a book launch earlier in Bangalore, Ravi Shankar said, “Music runs in the veins of every individual, and it is the thread that binds us all together.” In the first half of the concert, Anoushka Shankar played a 40-minute set accompanied by Pirashanna Thevarajah (mridangam) and Tanmoy Bose (tabla) on percussion. Dressed in…
Kailash Kher, charismatic singer in the Sufi-rock style, proved yet again that he is right at the cutting edge of fusion music in India during his performance at IIM Bangalore this weekend. I left early for the venue to beat Bangalore traffic, and reached so early that I caught the band’s sound check. I chatted with lead guitarist Paresh Kamath who told me about the lineup for the concert, especially singling out Tapas Roy on mandolin and saz (long-necked Turkish string instrument). Roy’s instrumentation added a distinctly Middle Eastern flavour to the performance that evening. But that’s getting ahead of the story a bit! The crowds began to fill in late in the evening as…
Madanmohan RaoMadanmohan RaoMadanmohan Rao
Sitarist-composer Anoushka Shankar’s 2012 global tour for her latest album Traveller touched down in Bangalore on January 22. The album has been released on the Deutsche Grammophon label and the India concerts were organised by Indian Stage; details of other tours are on her official website. Traveller brings together the soulful soaring music of Spanish flamenco with the unique texture and rhythms of Indian classical music. The album and concert series re-interpret the thousand-year-old link between Spanish and Indian music, originally kicked off by gypsy migration from northwest India to Europe, Africa, and west Asia. The pieces span a wide range of texture, rhythm, melody, and mood. Anoushka Shankar began as an Indian classical music sitarist, and then branched out into fusion…
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The world music circuit in India for 2012 kicked off in fine style with the Lakshminarayana Global Music Festival, starting off in Bangalore and then moving on to Chennai, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Pune, Trivandrum and Kollam through the month of January. The Bangalore concert on a Saturday evening was also followed by a workshop the following Sunday morning, a real treat! As part of a 20-year tradition, violin maestro L. Subramaniam brought musicians from around the world for a treat of world music dialogues and jam. The annual concert series is a tribute to his late father, the legendary violinist V. Lakshminarayana. I have had the joy of attending over five of these festivals, and this…
