“Celebration of Santoor” with Shivkumar and Rahul Sharma live in South Africa
South African audiences will be treated to an evening of pure Indian Classical Music and Fusion influenced by Indian Classical Music, when the legendary santoor maestro Pandit Shivkumar Sharma and Rahul Sharma take to the stage in a concert series scheduled for September. The concert is a double bill and will see Pandit Shivkumar Sharma rendering traditional compositions on the santoor, accompanied by Subhankar Banerjee on tabla. The other part features Rahul Sharma presenting contemporary compositions on santoor with Subhankar Banerjee and a team of musicians from India playing bass, keyboard and percussion. Rahul will be joined on stage by leading South African jazz musician, Buddy Wells on saxophone. Rahul and Buddy have developed a great musical friendship and understanding as they collaborated in a performance for the inaugural edition of the IPL in Mumbai in 2008. “Indian classical music has had a great influence on jazz music and many great jazz musicians I admire have studied the philosophies and music of India. I have a great appreciation for the deep traditions of Indian music, but more than that, I also really enjoy listening to Indian classical music and have enjoyed many of the excellent concerts produced by Inner Circle Entertainment over the years. Their vision has led to some wonderful collaborations between musicians from India and South Africa, and I am grateful for this opportunity to perform again with Rahul Sharma. Our previous performance together was at the IPL closing ceremony in Mumbai and I am looking forward to exploring the music more deeply with Rahul in this South African tour”, says Buddy Wells.
Since Shivkumar and Rahul’s previous South African tour (titled Raga on 200 Strings - which was sold out weeks before the tour), Rahul has added some interesting collaborative projects to his discography. Some of these include “Confluence II” with Richard Clayderman, “A Meeting by the Nile” with Egyptian oud player Georges Kazazian, “In the Footsteps of Babur” with Afghani rabab player Homayoun Sakhi. His latest album which is topping the charts internationally is the album “Namaste India” with smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G. This album also features a voice over by a legend of Indian cinema, Amitabh Bachchan. Rahul was the first Indian musician to release a thematic album for Peter Gabriel’s REALWORLD label titled “Music of the Himalayas”. Rahul Sharma also released an album “Rhythm of Love” where he is accompanied by tabla wizard Ustad Zakir Hussain, a feat and honour in itself for any young musician. All these albums which are distinctly different in concept and approach bear testimony to Rahul’s sheer musical genius and versatility. Speaking from Mumbai, Rahul said “Having released more than fifty albums to date and half of them being categorized as fusion, this is the first time that I’ll be performing with my fusion band in South Africa. I will be presenting some of my compositions from albums like Confluence which I did with Richard Clayderman and more recently Namaste India with Kenny G. Indian Classical Music involves a lot of improvising spontaneously just like jazz and this makes it more exciting for me to team up with jazz saxophonist Buddy Wells and try out some of my compositions. I’m really looking forward to performing in South Africa this September. We were so warmly received by audiences across South Africa on our previous tour and I am now really looking forward to sharing my music with them again.” Santoor (a type of hammered dulcimer), the folk instrument from the valley of Kashmir in the Himalayas, owes its classical status to Shivkumar Sharma. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Santoor or “Shata-Tantri Veena” (100 strings) as it was called in the ancient times, was used as an accompaniment to a specific type of singing called 'Sufiana Mausiqi'. After in-depth research, he made some important modifications on this hundred stringed instrument, like a new chromatic arrangement of notes and increased the range to cover a full three octaves. Besides, he also created a new technique of playing with which he could sustain the notes and maintain sound continuity. Today Santoor is on par with any classical instrument, well established not just all over India, but across the globe. With his creative genius, Shivkumar Sharma has created a new genre of instrumental music.
Through a performance career of over half a century, Shivkumar Sharma has caught the interest and imagination of millions of new listeners who have since become ardent fans of Indian classical music. His performances are such a brilliant combination of rich knowledge, perfect skill and abundant, spontaneous creativity that all types of listeners feel enriched. Little surprise that his concerts are keenly awaited way ahead of time by connoisseurs, music students, musicians and lay listeners alike. “My personal concept of Indian Classical Music is that it is rooted in spirituality. Whenever I play, whether alone, or in a concert, the music takes me inwards, deep into meditative concentration,” says Shivkumar Sharma. While he never compromises on the purity of music, his open minded approach has resulted in some of the most popular, innovative experimental albums like Call of the Valley (still the highest selling Indian classical music album ever recorded), Feelings, Music of the Mountains and many others. In fact he is among those rare classical musicians who enjoyed equal success in the world of film music. Now for over fourty years Santoor has become an indispensible part of Indian film music too. His compositions for the legendary movie director Yash Chopra’s blockbusers Silsila, Lamhe, Chandni, and Darr are all-time favourites across the globe. Music he believes is the food for the soul. Naturally his music is meditative and soothing at the same time. Shivkumar Sharma has a long list of national and international awards conferred upon him like the Honorary Citizen of the City of Baltimore USA (1985), Sangeet Natak Academy Award (1986), Maharashtra Gaurav Puruskur (1990), Honory Doctorate from the University of Jammu (1991), Padmashree (1991), Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan Award (1998), Padma Vibushan (2001) conferred by the Government of India, Tansen Samman (2004), Master Deenanath Mangeshkar Award (2005), Honoured by House of Representatives of the State Of New Mexico (2007), International Cultural Ambassador Award by World Bank (2007), and a Honorary Doctorate from the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) in 2008. CONCERT DATES |
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