LUMINOUS RAGAS

AN EVENING OF INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC

Featuring Steve Gorn with Dibyarka Chatterjee

Saturday, May 14, 2010 at 8:00 PM -  Tickets $18 ($16 members, students $8)

August 12, 2009 (Watchung, NJ) –The Watchung Arts Center is excited to present a performance of  Indian classical music as part of a new bi-annual series.  Saturday’s concert, Luminous Ragas: An Evening of Indian Classical Music with Steve Gorn on Bansuri Flute and Dibyarka Chatterjee on Tabla, will feature the emotion of the Indian ragas. This unique performance will reveal the beauty and subtleties of this exquisite music through a guided listening meditation.

The musicians will perform ragas from the Hindustani classical music tradition as well as folk melodies from North India.  This music is passed from generation to generation, from master to disciple, as a living oral tradition. It combines the classicism of traditional repertoire, fixed melodic forms, and precise intonation, with improvisation and spontaneous creation.   Indian classical music is a meeting of Raga (melody) and Tala (rhythm).  Raga means, “to color the mind,” and traditionally, each raga, or melodic landscape, is associated with a time of day, a season or a quality of light.  Tala, is rhythm…time, defined and elaborated in rhythmic cycles. Evolved over centuries from music performed in temples and courts, present day Indian classical music is a true 'chamber music.'

The instruments feature Bansuri Flute, Tabla, and Tanpura.  The bansuri bamboo flute  is the simplest of all Indian  melody instruments in construction, though it is one of the most  difficult on which to master the complexity of classical Indian music. To Indian people, the bansuri is a celestial instrument that immediately conjures up images of Lord Krishna. The body of the instrument is a straight tube of bamboo with a mouth and seven finger holes. The subtle intonation of Indian music is achieved by partially covering the finger holes.  Tabla is the most popular percussion instrument in North India, and is commonly used to accompany classical ragas. Actually two drums, the tabla provides the tala, or rhythmic structure for the music.  Each stroke has a particular sound, which combined form rhythmic patterns that define the tala, and are elaborated in either fixed compositions or improvisation. The tanpura is a long-necked lute that provides the ever present drone ostinato, which is the basis of tuning for the musicians, and the ground from which the notes of each particular raga arises.

The musicians will take the audience on an enchanting journey.  Steve Gorn, whose flute is featured on the 2004 Academy Award winning Documentary film, Born into Brothels, has performed Indian Classical Music and New American Music on the bansuri bamboo flute in concerts and festivals throughout the world, and is said to be one of the few westerners who has captured the subtle nuances of Indian music.  You can read more about him at www.SteveGorn.com.   Dibyarka Chatterjee is a young and promising Tabla player from the Farrukhabad Gharana. At the age of five he was initiated by his father Pandit Samir Chatterjee, a world-renowned Tabla maestro

For more information or to purchase tickets online visit our website at www.watchungarts.org or to place a reservation call 908-753-0190 or email at wacenter@optonline.net.  The Watchung Arts Center is located at 18 Stirling Road, Watchung, NJ  07069.

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