Tabla maestro Aneesh Pradhan was in Goa recently. NT BUZZ spoke to him about the current scenario in Hindustani music and the dearth of refined listeners
Kalyani Jha | NT BUZZ
Aneesh Pradhan is amongst the leading tabla players of the country, and performs at national and international concerts. A recipient of the Aditya Birla Kala Kiran Award, Natyadarpan Award, Vanostsav Award and Saath Sangat Kalakar Award, Pradhan is known for bridging cultural ties through music.
He was in Goa with his wife Shubha Mudgal as part for the Goa Institute of Management’s (GIM) ‘Distinguished Visiting Scholars’ programme to discuss strategies on mainstreaming Goa’s traditional percussion musical instrument – the ghumat.
Pradhan has been a member of the Japanese Asian Fantasy Orchestra. Presently, he is collaborating with ‘Ensemble Modern’ since 2003. He was also one of the presenters for ‘Perspectives- North Indian Classical Music’ that was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He is a regular contributor on radio and television broadcasts dedicated to classical music and art.
His first solo album, titled ‘Tabla: the solo tradition’, was released in 2004 and was followed by ‘Tabla solo: a continuation tradition.’ He asserts that he loves his experiments with sound, music and vocals.
Along with his wife, he curated an international music festival ‘Baaja Gaaja’ for four years in Pune, which showcased music from 21st century India under the label, Underscore Records, to mark five glorious years. “Instead of just the two of us, we wanted to celebrate with the rest of the musicians in the community and everybody connected with music. And not just one kind of music, but all kinds,” says Pradhan, who tells us that 250 artists were featured for three days from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Music stalwarts like Gulzar, Shivkumar Sharma and Javed Akhtar inaugurated in the first three editions.
The festival couldn’t continue after the fourth edition due to paucity of funds. However, the couple still continue to mesmerise through music as they curate special musical evenings.
“We look for opportunities to do out-of-the-box work in music and soon we will be back in Goa at the Serendipity Festival of Arts this year,” Pradhan informs. The musician, along with Shubha, will be curating a section on traditional Indian music.
Also into writing, Pradhan used the name ‘Baaja Gaaja’ for his writings on music for a series of books for children. “It was conceptualised by Shubha and it was the first time we used the name. The idea was to have a series of 12 small books on musical instruments of India. But since we could not get a publisher, as we intended it to be published in six languages— six instruments each from north and south India, we tried the first book on our own,” Pradhan tells us.
Again the two put in their own money, and there weren’t many takers and no proper distribution network other than the couple’s website.
Pradhan has also written a book on tabla that he intends not to be read like a manual. He has given information about the history of the instrument, styles of playing and the kind of context you find it in. “Since I have a doctorate in music history, I decided to publish my thesis as a book—Hindustani Music in Colonial Bombay. Here, I explored how the then Bombay was an attraction for musicians from north and central India.
“Many came and settled in Bombay; there were many from Goa too. We came there and settled for several decades very successfully. I looked at the city as a space growing in colonial time for music from the mid 19th century to 1947,” he says. He then decided to write another book about music in Mumbai (then Bombay) from 1947 up till recent times. The book was titled, ‘Chasing the Round Dream’, and was about musicians facing challenges in the rapidly transforming world of Hindustani classical music. He says, “I tried to look at how institutions, the music circle, patrons and the government look at Hindustani music, along with what needs to be done to ensure these music practitioners are successful.”
Telling us about how tabla finds itself in a Japanese orchestra since he is a member of the Asian Fantasy Orchestra since 1998, Pradhan says the project is exciting. “The producer and most musicians were Japanese, along with other musicians from other Asian countries. The first time we toured five countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar, we had musicians from there also performing with us. I got to learn a lot from this interaction,” he says.
He states that many perceive fusion to be Indian and western music, while we rarely think about the immediate neighbours with whom we have more in common than the West. “Due to colonial rule, we share a lot in common with the British and Portuguese,” he adds.
The ongoing collaboration with Ensemble Modern, which Pradhan is part of, is led by composer Sandeep Bhagwati, who had an idea that this performance should be held at ‘House of World Culture’ in Berlin. “Six composers from India were chosen to compose the orchestra, asking us to be as experimental as we wanted. Thus, for a few years we performed in Germany.”
His latest inter-cultural collaborative project is ‘Bridge of Dreams’ with an Australian group. The band called, ‘Sirens Big Band’, consists of women and transgender musicians. “The concern for them and us was that the music seemed to be diverse with a lot of common grounds.” Saxophonist Sandy Evans from Australia, Shubha and Pradhan were co-composers on this project, where Shubha was also the artistic director.