It is that time of year again, for the yearly seminar on music at ncpa. Many are cynical, and I have been too, but I am now an appreciative enthusiastic supporter of it. I have heard many interesting discussions and learned many things. It is easy to criticize but at least they are doing it! Many thanks to Pt. Arvind Parikh Wim, Suvarnalata Rao, Ashok Ranade and the other organizers. I unfortunately missed Saturday completely and much of Friday. I had wanted to hear Alyn Miner’s presentation on 19th century texts but only caught the end of it. It was interesting to hear her recorded rendition on sitar of a composition notated in a Urdu or persian publication from the 19th century. I am looking forward to reading more about her research. Along with Katherine Butler Brown she is a pioneer in the exploration of largely neglected manuscripts in urdu and persian from the 18th and 19th centuries. A gentleman from California addressed the audience to note the large presence of foreigners on the panels and among the research scholars. This elicited a response from Suvarnalata Rao that there is no promotion or discrimination in the choice of invitees and that her invitations to present something sent to as many of the universities in India with music departments as she knew about yielded almost no response. She remarked that even the 2 Mumbai universities didn’t seem to have any representative there. On the other hand Rajesh Kelkar came down from Baroda University with 26 students. My feeling is that perhaps more attempt could be made to encourage Hindi researchers who, as things stand now, might feel intimidated by the emphasis on English. I do think the experiment of having simultaneous translation into English for non-Hindi speakers that was done at least one year for the seminar is an excellent idea and worked very well. That year Ustad Aslam Hussain Khan, Savita Devi and Purnima Chaudhuri gave very interesting talks in Hindi. Shri Goswami who has written the remarkable book on Sadarang has not been called to the seminar and remarkably the late Pt. Ramashreya Jha an incomparable authority on Hindustani music and mesmerizing speaker (in Hindi) was never invited to the seminars. The seminar did miss something this year. Nicolas Magriel has been doing a research project on children learning music in traditional families and has made remarkable films. The footage of the children learning at different periods over years and sometimes even generations is very interesting and well done. Nicolas was invited to speak on another subject and I hear it was very good nonetheless. It was a treat to listen to Smt. Shanta Gokhale again this year. She speaks beautifully and is clear and forceful in her thinking. I couldn’t agree more that music reviews need a lighter touch, very different from the hackneyed approach of the previous decades. Mr. Murli the editor of the Hindu was the moderator of the session and he spoke very well about the current situation. The Hindu still of course has its reviews in the Friday supplement and although I do not often see it, I always remember back in the 1970’s and 80’s when I would go to Madras and avidly read the reviews in the Hindu. Even though I knew nothing about Carnatic music or the artists the reviews were so well written and interesting I loved reading them. As in any kind of reviewing, that is really the test of a good review. Despite Mr. Murli sitting next to him, Nandu Dhaneshwar declared the review “dead”, at least of classical music in national papers. He sees the preview as having taken the place of the review. In the next panel discussion on music across national boundaries Wim did an excellent job of focusing the discussion and many interesting points were raised. Time was too short for this subject; I would have liked to have heard much more from each speaker. It was fascinating that the musicologist from Uzbekistan remarked that in that country Indian music is known by film music and that when she has tried to present classical music it is not thought of as authentic. Shubha Mudgal was brilliant and provocative. She remarked on how representations of Indian culture sent to foreign countries often now are of the Bollywood lip-sync, hip gyrating variety, and the recipients of government largess in general tend to be from the region or community of the current holders of positions of authority. She mentioned Steve Gorn’s name in connection with his being nominated for a Grammy award, which I didn’t know. Steve was in the audience and is a modest gentleman (and a truly fantastic musician) . Shubha mentioned this in the context of him, although playing Indian music, was not recognized here in India for the nomination whereas any NRI no matter how distant from India culturally or musically is wildly celebrated in the media. On Saturday night I attended Ulhas Kashalkar’s concert at Dadar Matunga Cultural Centre. Bhup was excellent and Suresh Talwarkar in great form. The barwa bandish after “baje mori payelia” for me was just ok. Faiyez Khan really set the standard for that and I think it needs the support of one or preferably two singers behind. The harmonium of Sudhir Nayak was just too loud, and although he is very good I wish he were more subdued. After the intermission Ulhas began Hamir. I am so familiar with his commercial recording (champa chameli) and it began so similarly that I didn’t feel like staying. It is true that however good he is and all his qualities his treatment of all ragas is very predictable and can start to be boring if he isn’t careful. He doesn’t have the ability of some singers to break the sameness with thumri.
