University News Bureau
University News Bureau
Sitarist Ravi Shankar and his daughter, Anoushka, will perform at 8 p.m. April 30th in Wait Chapel
By Al-Husein Madhany and Robert Shaw
Contributing Reporters
The Year of the Arts, the Year of Religion in American Life and the Year of Globalization and Diversity find common ground in one of the most remarkable events of the year at this university. Pandit Ravi Shankar, an ambassador, a humanitarian, an innovator and a world class musician, continues one of the most phenomenal artistic careers of this century.
Shankar's music is, in his own words, "a spiritual discipline on the path to self-realization, for we (as Indians) follow the traditional teaching that sound is God -- Nada Brahma. By this process individual consciousness can be elevated to a realm of awareness where the revelation of the true meaning of the universe -- its eternal and unchanging essence -- can be joyfully experienced."
Shankar's music is the vehicle through which this "essence" can be experienced. Shankar is a legend in that he brought traditional Indian music to the ears of the Western world. Beatles legend George Harrison regards Shankar as the "Godfather of World Music."
Universally renowned as the greatest living sitarist, Shankar continues in his 80s to break new ground in music through his substantial talent.
Throughout his career, Shankar has pursued a diversity of paths that perhaps knows no peer. In addition to his traditional Nada Brahma music, Shankar has made high-publicity inroads into genres such as rock, classical and jazz.
His collaborations with artists such as Harrison, Yehudi Menuhin, Jean-Pierre Rampal and Hosan Yamamoto have brought countless audiences the Hindu aesthetic in music.
Shankar has written a sitar concerto, improvised with Western artists, sponsored conferences and started a foundation supporting interaction among artists and audiences.
Shankar fervently believes in the value of understanding new ways of conceiving music and its message. His ambassadorship in these realms has earned him countless awards.
Shankar has brought the new era of globalization to the music world, and his outreach efforts have been an inspiration to generation after generation of audiences and musicians alike.
Last year, Shankar had to cancel his engagement at the university, one of the last stops on his final tour, for health reasons. True to form, the sitarist made a special re-engagement with the Secrest Artists' Series this year.
He will honor the university with a concert April 30 at 8 p.m. in Wait Chapel. With him will be his prodigious daughter Anoushka, also a sitarist.
The sitar is a stringed Indian instrument with six or seven main playing strings and 13 sympathetic resonating strings on a track of 20 metal frets. It forms an integral part of the Indian classical music ensemble.
The Shankars will perform ragas, a traditional form of Hindu music based upon what Pandit Shankar calls "a scientific, precise, subtle and aesthetic melodic form with its own peculiar ascending and descending movement consisting of either a full seven note octave, or a series of six or five notes (or a combination of any of these) in a rising or falling structure called the Arohana and Avarohana."
Yet, these ragas are more often than not improvised because they are, according to Shankar, "the projection of the artist's inner spirit, a manifestation of his most profound sentiments and sensibilities brought forth through tones and melodies."
Because the sitarist "breathes life to the raga by expanding and unfolding it," the artist must understand the depth of the relationship between what Shankar calls, "the spirit and the nuances of the art."
Accordingly, this form of musical expression cannot be taught through any text, but the sitarist may enlist a guru to bring the uninitiated sitarist to her own moment of artistic mastery. And this is precisely how Shankar sees his relationship with his only daughter, Anoushka.
Anoushka will spend many years of "sadhana," or dedicated practice and discipline under the guidance of Shankar until she has matured to a point where she is able, with the blessing of her guru, to put "prana," or the breath of life, into her ragas.
Currently, at 16-years-old, Anoushka's priority is the time she spends with her father practicing sitar.
She witnesses the ecstasy in the audience members her father plays to and wishes to be able to give her audiences similar experiences.
"I need to improvise more on my own. The pressure of the concerts force me to do that more and more which is essential to my being in unison with the sprit of the music. Very rarely do I feel that unison, but when I do, it brings me to tears and my hands play what my heart feels. These are the times when I and my father are most proud of my progress."
"The only thing that hinders my progress is myself," she admits. According to her guru, "Anoushka is interrupted by the cultural clash she feels at times living in America." As an Indian-American, Anoushka feels confused at times about her identity. She struggles with what her guru calls a "cacophony of influences" which distract her from her progress in the sitar.
She admits that she is frequently outraged by the ignorance and nonchalance her classmates express about her culture. She said, "My pet peeve is when people, some of whom I know quite well, ask me if I speak Hindu or if I am a Hindi. And when I correct them, they brush it off totally disrespecting my culture by making it out to be something of less importance to them then their pure American culture, whatever that is!" Experiences like these add to her deep introspection of who she is and who she is slowly becoming. She is quick to point out that she frequently questions her sense of belonging. She said, "When on tour in this country, sometimes I am treated as a foreigner and when I am in India, I am treated like an ABCD, an American-born confused Desi. In both places I feel sometimes that I do not belong, but it hurts most when I am in India because it is my favorite country."
However, Anoushka would not label it as a "cacophony," but rather as a necessary growth process. She said, "I am changing everyday, in ways which raise eyebrows in our community back in India, but I would not give up any of it. I am a product of my experiences and I am confused, but that is exactly what excites me about my life right now." She claims that this process is what allows her not to be one dimensional as many other musical prodigies are and share her experiences with others. She said, "I am proud of the work we have been able to do in Third Wave. We work to get voices heard, especially female voices." Third Wave is a feminist group at her high school in which she plays an active role. "My involvement with women's issues and being a spokeswoman against child abuse" has been an auspicious beginning for the young musician. Widely acclaimed already for her outreach efforts, she balances her public life with daily duties in academics, piano lessons and creative writing. Anoushka Shankar merges the consequences of a rising star with necessities of adolescence with skill beyond her sixteen years. Still, her father worries that the American teenage experience will interfere with her musical and spiritual growth. The Western experience concerns Ravi Shankar at the musical level, as well. Despite his enormous success and popularity, Shankar remains frustrated that much of his music and what he calls Indian classical music was linked with the "hippie movement in America in the `60s which valued the pop style."
In an interview Shankar tirelessly affirmed the standards to which he has always held himself musically. Although he has always been open to the entreaties of pop artists such as the Beatles, he believes his greatest accomplishments have been in the more intellectual and studied genres. His experiences with Western pop culture has to some extent frustrated his efforts to make Indian music taken seriously. His life's work has been to bring substantial, spiritual art to new audiences and not to provide them with background arabesques or to lend their pop music an exotic flavor. Although grateful to the Beatles for their help in giving him a name, he has always felt most at home with Indian and Western classical musicians.
His other principal criticism of pop culture lies in its association with what he considers to be an immoral lifestyle. He constantly admonishes the social and spiritual dangers of drugs as well as alcohol and tobacco. Indeed, he refuses to perform in a setting that sells alcohol, or in which narcotics are used. When interviewed, he felt compelled to decry the alcohol dependency that characterizes much of college social life. Shankar's remarkable artistic output continues to be his highest cultivation of the religious side of his life. While he does not embrace a particular religion, he does find spiritual value in the panorama of world religions, and he considers his creative oeuvre to be the essence of his private life. The aesthetic sense he feels for his music he also values in all kinds of artistic music, from Western classical to West African traditional. The very Indian conception of music as a vehicle for reaching the divine is perhaps the most enduring aspect of his distinguished musical "jihad."
Tickets are still available for the Ravi Shankar concert April 30. Call the Secrest Artist Series office at Ext. 5757 for more information.