Iconic Sitar to Mesmerising Carnatic Ragas
This double bill concluded the third day of the eighth Darbar Festival, held between 19 September and 22 September 2013.
16 December 2013
Author: Ken Hunt
Music critic, journalist, broadcaster and translator who specialises in world music, folk and improvised musics
The Instrument and the Musician – Pannalal Ghosh and Hindustani Bansuri
Continuing our series, Ken Hunt examines how Pannalal Ghosh revolutionised the humble bamboo flute.
13 September 2013
Manickam Yogeswaran
Manickam Yogeswaran is probably the most-heard South Indian vocalist on the planet ever.
13 September 2013
Call of Bangalore
Call of Bangalore begins with an agile-minded, musically unafraid opening gambit. With its title slyly alluding to her birthplace, this studio album not only shows off violinist Jyotsna Srikanth’s roots but also her command of melodicism, rhythmicality and pace.
13 September 2013
DESH
DESH derives from a Bengali word with a few translation possibilities and semantic associations. For their 2011 dance project musician-composer Jocelyn Pook and Akram Khan settled on homeland as their preferred translation.
14 March 2013
The Instrument and the Musician – Kamalesh Maitra and the Tabla Tarang
Ken Hunt traces the route taken by Maitra and the tabla tarang from East Bengal to Berlin via Calcutta and North America.
14 March 2013
Abdulkarim Raas & Kuljit Bhamra present Somali Party Southall
From its opening flourish, Hobey Hobey Heleyoy (‘Come Sing and Dance’) with its blend of Punjabi and Somali ingredients, the pretty much unerring plus ça change philosophical logic of Somali Party Southall is bracing.
18 December 2012
Shujaat Khan & Swapan Chaudhuri
The previous afternoon Swapan Chaudhuri, the tabla-player of choice for the sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan (1922–2009) in his last… Read More
18 December 2012
Chitravina Ravikiran – Musician by Name, Musician by Nature
Following his recent performance at Darbar Festival, Ravikiran speaks to Ken Hunt, who considers him to be “one of the most fascinating musicians I’ve ever met”.
18 December 2012
Englobed
Around the time that I was delivering the final drop-ins for my India chapters in the Europe, Asia & Pacific volume for what would be the third and final edition of the Rough Guide to World Music, there was a bloom of new talent working in East-West fusion forms emerging.
18 December 2012