Music Organisation

Music festival – raising an organisation

I have been associated with Gururao Deshpande Sangeet Sabha since 1993, learnt many things, worked to my capacity. I have been seeing music organizations while performing or visiting with Guruji. ‘Passion’ about music is gravity of any music establishments. In Gururao Deshpande Sangeet Sabha, guruji and his guru bhakti is a motivation for us and center point in sabha. Everything connects to that. Many great artistes performed on this platform. Watching them on the stage and behind the stage is good opportunity to learn many things which can’t be taught, it is learnt from experience whether it is good or bad, you grab the best things out of it. I observed things like - Planning, conversations, interaction with different people and performing on the stage.

LearnQuest Academy of Music, Boston and its founder Sri Pradip Shuklaji, invited guruji for USA concert tour in 1999. He is math professor in Suffolk University, singer and teaching classical music at academy. He has great passion towards Hindustani classical music and Academy started organizing annual music conference in the month of April since 7 years. That has a great success story. This music meet transformed Boston area into Indian music hub in USA. Pradipji has a dream of spreading classical music in many parts of world with the motto,’ connecting people through music’.

On Jan 11th 2013, LearnQuest academy of music inaugurated its INDIA chapter at India habitat centre New delhi, Pt Rajan-Sajan Mishraji and Pt Pravin Godkhindi performed .Pt Ashis Sengupta and few likeminded people from different parts of India (Delhi,Pune, Bangalore,Varanasi,Kolkota and Chennai) came together and started this venture. I have been closely associated with LearnQuest from many years. It’s a kind gesture of Pradipji and Ashisji to include me as part of this good beginning. Sri Pravin Godkhindi played ‘Yaman’ and Hamsadhwani. He is very good artiste and has god gift in him. (God exists in his name) He can play both gayaki ang and tatrakari, which is a rare combination. Padmabhushana Pt Rajan-Sajan Mishraji sang Bageshri ang Chandrakouns, this brother duo is an extraordinary one. Two bodies but one musical soul.

Very nice beginning to Learnquest academy in India, Many more concerts to come….

Lecture on Bhatkhandeji

Yesterday, 30th dec 2012,Sri Ramesh Gangolli, a mathematician, musician and musicologist gave a lecture on ‘Pt Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande’ at vidhushi Aditi Kaikiniji’s residence Bangalore. Everywhere New year mood was there, mixed memories of 2012 and anxiety about 2013. Sri Gangolliji is very good friend of my guruji. First I met him when guruji took me to USA in 1999. Guruji sang at seattle and we went to gangolliji s house, a nice person, gentle and very learned human being. He sang few times at guruji s residence and taught us few bandishes. The Lecture was very nice, few months back for my M Music , I studied Bhatkhandeji little bit. When he was talking about bhatkhande‘s life history, somewhere my mind was telling, hey I know this, oh I studied this. But later when he explained how bhatkhandeji‘s musical journey, it was interesting and informative. He was an institution, he was pioneer of modern Hindustani classical music. two great musicians Paluskar and Bhatkhande started swaralipi and revised few like ‘That’ system and Rag Jati system. The in depth knowledge and experience of this professor made us wiser with great theoretical aspects of classical music. He spoke for more than two hours, educating us about Bhatkhandeji s work. ‘Great mind think alike’, old proverb but proven again and again in different situations for different people. I am writing a essay on ‘the role of sath-sangat (accompaniment) in Hindustani classical music’ for my M Music. I have meet many musicians like Guruji, Nirodyji, Lalit raoji, Yavagalji, Venkatesh Kumarji. I could gather a whole lot of information on saath sangat . Basically every great musician’s views on music is same, may be their language and expression are different. Music is great; every musician’s main motto on the stage is same, delivering good music,. There is nothing like main artiste and side artiste or accompanist. Everybody is equal but as a lead performer on stage the singer holds them all to deliver a well co-ordinated recitals. They shared their experiences, their journey with sathidars. Sath-Sangat is very important subject in classical music. Not only in classical but in every genre of music which use accompaniment. Without that we can’t think of a performance. Talking to the senior musicians is always a pleasure and for sure they are always a guru and guide . Wishing one and all A Happy new year……