Indian Classical Music Thread

I've been enjoying the spring concert season at Chhandayan (tabla.org), which was launched 25 or so years back to help young artists get experience on stage. The concerts are intimate and excellent.

The vocalist two weeks back sang very well and last night was the son of the late, great sarangiya (like a viola with 3 main strings, 30 sympathetic strings and bowed underhand) Ramesh Mishra, on his first live concert (his mom was there and so happy there was a good turnout). Before the concert, the tabla player said to me and my fiancée, "I've seen you before at many concerts" and introduced himself. I told him I'd first seen him at one of his first big concerts (his dad, a famous tabla player, had broken his toe that day and tossed his son on stage! It went well). Good times.

Anyone in NYC who would like, check out tabla.org, there are two more concerts at least coming up and then the last All-Night Concert, from 8pm to 6am...in a Month or so.

 

Super!

Sarangi? Thick strings that look like garden twine? Or something a bit different?

 

This!

 

Mesmerizing sitar performance by Ravi Shankar at Monterey Pop (June 1967)
18+ minutes of pure exhilaration!!

 

Ah, yes: that's what I thought. A really haunting sound!


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I saw Jayanti Kunaresh play the south Indian Veena (Saraswati veena) last night in Brooklyn).
Some real highlights to her playing came out in the improvisations, the rapid pre-composed pieces at the end designed to show some "fireworks" to the crowd were technically excellent but lacked the feeling of the traditional compositions.

Thad, have you seen her and what do you think?

 

typo: it's Kumaresh with an N
Typo Typo: Duh... I mean with an M!

I have seen her quite a few times, and I think that she is excellent. Her physical virtuosity is hard to beat: did you notice those times when she plucks a string once and makes that last for more notes than seem possible? But all virtuoso tricks have to be used well, fit the music, and not just be show-off stuff. She scores in every respect. She is in the running for best veena player!

Glad you had the chance to see and enjoy her music! I usually see her concert in early January, a regular fixture for one of the "sabhas" here. Maybe a couple of other times during the year.

Her husband is violinist. Often plays with his brother: Ganesh and Kumaresh. They have a specific sound that I'm not so fond of now, but they were a part of getting me attuned to carnatic music.

 

For anyone in the area who might be interested, Cleveland Aradhana, a festival of (mostly South-)Indian music and dance. I think some of the food may even be home-cooked too! On from yesterday 'till 26th April.

Link: Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival Schedule

 

Can't get enough of the Water Lily Acoustics recordings, really digging this one at the moment.

 

My celebration of my birthday this week was sponsorship of this concert by my favourite artist, and, perhaps, favourite person:



They next day, I was able to enjoy this program by a grandmother and her amazing 12-yr-old grandchild/student:

 

Listening to this album based on @Kunlun and @Thad E Ginathom recommending the artist. Thanks for the suggestion a year later. I prefer the longer, slower tempo songs.

 

Generally speaking, so do I

 

If you have any more recommendations for lower tempo instrumental carnatic music I'd love to hear them.

 

Hmmm... You you will always find more vocal than instrumental in Carnatic.

May I suggest a couple of Youtube channels where you will find a variety of artists, can dip in?

1. Parivadini

2. Arkay

 

Thank you very much @Thad E Ginathom
I'm working my way through the first channel. One of the fist concerts i watched is my favorite so far:


And for something completely different, Debashish Battacharya playing Hindustani slide guitar on NPR's tiny desk concert from a few years ago:

 

Haha... This was the last live concert I attended. There were one or two more before our national lockdown, but audiences, including us, were already deciding that we should not be out there.

I have a nickname for this guy: music on legs! You can find other wonderful violinists, it can be argued that they may have better sound, but R K Sriramkumar is just pure music, even when he is not even playing!

The mridangist is also a favourite of mine, but some people do not like him at all. They consider his gentle, minimalist style to be hardly playing at all.

If you like this concert by RKSK, then I can say that you are potential audience for heavyweight carnatic music.

NB: we were the there the day before for another violin solo concert, by S Varadarajan. He's my wife's favourite violinist. Damned good too.

I'll check out the NPR concert later. I recall, now, watching some wonderful music from the NPR Tiny Desk series.

 

Humnasheen, an album of ghazals sung by Shreya Ghoshal, with compositions and lyrics by Deepak Pandit and Manoj Muntashir. I've posted a YouTube link below, and the full album is available on Tidal. I don't know enough about Indian music to know if this qualifies as classical, but I thought it may be of interest to folks who've posted in this thread. Stunningly good vocal and instrumental performances, really well recorded. Just a beautiful album. I think Shreya Ghoshal is better known for her Bollywood recordings, but I would love to find more like this.

 

Thanks for this beautiful voice singing Ghazhals....

 

I'm giving up on finding audiophile recordings, Youtube really seems to be the place for carnatic music. The audio quality on this video is good, and I like that the vocals are deeper in the mix than on other videos. I think this is the first vocal performance that I've thoroughly enjoyed.