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The Joy of Creativity in Khayal
A Masterclass in Hindustani Music
Facilitators
Explore the essence of Hindustani music through three sessions of our Masterclass series with Pandit Satyasheel Deshpande. Session 1 will illuminate the role of rhythm in fostering individual expression, showcasing its diverse applications in folk, film, and classical genres. In Session 2, we will delve into the gharana traditions as distinct aesthetic ideologies, dissecting their unique approaches to ragas and talas. Finally, Session 3 will unveil the significance of bandishes as carriers of musical expression, offering insights into their nuanced composition and performance dynamics. This journey through the landscape of Hindustani music, where tradition meets innovation at every turn, is suitable for seasoned professionals, gayikas, young performers and music enthusiasts alike.
Session 1: The Khayal and Individual Expression
Friday | Mar 29 | 6pm – 8pm
This session will introduce the unique nature of rhythm in Hindustani music, and will frame it as an enabler of individual creative expression. Through demonstrations of folk, film and classical music, the session will demonstrate to participants how the tala-system of Hindustani music creates space and scope for creative, improvisatory play. It will also look at how diverse musicians have used this facility to make the music uniquely their own.
Session 2: Gharanas and Aesthetic Ideologies
Saturday | Mar 30 | 6pm – 8pm
This session will look at some of the major gharanas of vocal Hindustani music, but instead of seeing them purely as pedagogical lineages, we will think of them as particular aesthetic ideologies, particular ways of handling raga and tala that innovative musicians gave birth to. Through live demonstrations and curated archival recordings, we will do an intensive review of the gharana traditions of Hindustani music and the aesthetics they embody
Session 3: Bandish
Sunday | Mar 31 | 11am – 1pm
This final session will look at bandishes in Hindustani music as carriers of unique musical expression. We will discuss the importance of the bandish to Hindustani music, its uniqueness as a song-genre, and how it is different from other kinds of compositions. We will then look at various kinds of carefully selected bandishes from various ragas, talas, tempos, gharanas, and innovative composers. We will learn to appreciate the nuanced ways in which bandishes use text, how starting from a particular beat in the tala creates new beauty and new challenges for the singer, and many other such forces that drive performance.
Facilitators
Satyasheel Deshpande
Pt. Satyasheel Deshpande, based in Pune, is a uniquely creative Hindustani classical vocalist who is widely respected for his contributions as a performer, composer, musicologist, scholar, researcher, author and guru. He is the son of the renowned musicologist Pt. Vamanrao Deshpande and senior disciple of Padmavibhushan Pt. Kumar Gandharva.
In 1983, Satyasheel established the Samvaad Foundation at his residence in Mumbai. Here he created one of the largest and most valuable collections of Hindustani classical vocal music in India, a collection that continues to serve as an unrivalled source for the comparative study of this tradition. It was through this process that his unique, wide-ranging, eclectic and complex musical personality was forged. He is thus known today to be a performing musician with a rare understanding of diverse approaches to music making within the Hindustani tradition.
He has also sung for films, most famously in ‘Lekin’ with Smt. Asha Bhosle, for which he won the Best Playback Singer of the Year award. ‘Kahen’, one of his most popular albums, was published by the Master Deenanath Mangeshkar Foundation and launched by Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar.
Satyasheel has received many awards including the Homi Bhabha Fellowship 1996, the Kumar Gandharva Fellowship 1999, Sursingar Samsad’s Tansen award, the Raza award for creativity in 2006, the Vatsalabai Bhimsen Joshi award 2013 and, Kusumagraj Pratishthan’s Godavari Gaurav Puraskar, 2018. His Marathi book on his musical journey, Gaan Gunagaan, (Rajhans Prakashan, 2022) is already in its second edition, has become a bestseller, and has won the Lokmat Sahitya Puraskar 2023.
Sagar Bharathraj
Sagar is the son and disciple of Shri Bharathraj Venkat Rao from Calicut, Kerala, who is a senior disciple of Shri. Omkar Gulvady.
After coming to Bangalore for his post graduation in chemical engineering, Sagar learnt under Shri Ravindra Yavagal for a short while and has also undergone vocal accompaniment training from Smt. Aditi Upadhya.
Sagar is a research scientist with a chemical engineering background. A triple gold medalist for Btech from NIT Calicut, Mtech & PhD from IISc Bangalore, Sagar was also awarded the National Award for the best Mtech thesis in chemical engineering.
He is currently a research scientist with numerous international patents and publications to his credit, in the renewable energy arena, working with Samsung Semiconductor India RnD, Bangalore
