Welcome back, loyal listeners! It's been a long, eventful summer, hot as hell too, but here we are at the beginning of a new semester. This is the same old Gharana music though, bringing you your weekly dose of Indian classical music.
The first two tracks today are by a Hindustani vocalist named Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar from the city of Nagpur in Maharashtra. He is one of the prime representatives of the Gwalior and Jaipur Gharanas. He is said to be very strong on the traditional styles of singing, yet his performances always incorporate very interesting interpretations of his own. His voice is just beautiful - crisp and clear, and his vocal control is breath-taking. Here are the tracks:
1. Ulhas Kashalkar - Raag Alhaiya Bilawal (20:15)
2. Ulhas Kashalkar - Raag Hindol (10:28)
Our next artist for the day is Ustad Vilayat Khan - a sitar maestro from Bengal. He has been playing the sitar for over 60 years now, and he is defintely one of the bigger names in Hindustani Classical music, alongside the likes of Pandit Ravishankar. There is quite some controversy associated with his life though. Rumour has it that he there was quite a bit of rivalry between Ustad Vilayat Khan and Pandit Ravishankar, though I don't think it was anything serious. His animosity towards political institutions in India was no rumour. He routinely rejected National Awards every time he was awarded one, stating that the awards committee was not suited to judge his work, and that "it is always a story of the wrong awards given to the wrong people at the wrong time". It turned him into a not-so-media-friendly figure at one point of time and things went so far that he even boycotted All-India Radio - which was, for a long time, the main promoter for classical music in India. Regardless of all that, his music is simply divine, and his performances are legendary.
3. Ustad Vilayat Khan - Raag Marwa Drut (25:01)
Avinash Sastry
Gharana Music
WREK Atlanta, 91.1 FM
Mondays, 8-9 p.m.
www.wrek.org
(+1) 404-894-2468
Email: gharanamusicatlanta@gmail.com
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