 "Classical notes")
At the 25th Shriram Shankarlal Music Festival in Delhi in the 1970s, sitar maestro Ravi Shankar made it abundantly clear to the organisers that he would not like his performance to be recorded. Later that day, however, he regretted his decision. "I've never played so well. It is so sad that I haven't got a recording," he told Sumitra Charat Ram, the cultural impresario who founded the festival in 1947. Sumitra assured him that there was at least one person who recorded his performance, despite his strict orders.
Her daughter, Shobha Deepak Singh, had given a recorder to someone in the gathering to surreptitiously record the concert. "I made a copy and gave it to him," recalls Singh, 72, a few days before the three-day-long 69th edition of the festival kicks off at Kamani Auditorium in central Delhi.
Over the years, the festival has hosted legends such as vocalists Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Bhimsen Joshi, sarod player Ali Akbar Khan, flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia and Ravi Shankar - it also remains one of the oldest classical music festivals in Delhi. "Whenever I have rung up any musician, he never said no," says Singh, who is also director of the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, a Delhi-based cultural organisation that promotes music and performing arts through its schools and concerts.
For years, the festival, which later came to be called by its present name, would showcase performances by well-established artists. The format, however, changed in 1983. "We began to have one very senior musician and one young artist who we thought was going to be good," says Singh. "So, Ulhas Kashalkar, Ashwini Bhide Deshpande and Kaushiki Chakraborty came as relatively unknown people."
For an event that has spanned six decades, some performances stand out in Singh's memory: a "rare" concert at which sitar player Vilayat Khan, Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan played together; another in which shehnai maestro Bismillah Khan and Vilayat Khan played raga Yaman; and a performance by tabla player Zakir Hussain at an open-air concert on a particularly "windy day, with his hair going all over".
Equally unique are some of the demands made by the veterans who have performed at the festival. Sarod virtuoso Amjad Ali Khan, for instance, was reluctant to have his rendering recorded. "His wife would send out people to see whether I was recording," says Singh. "But I would buy the latest equipment from London and keep it under a chair. The music was for students to learn; it wasn't for me."
She also recalls how legendary vocalist Mallikarjun Mansur once made an unusual request in the middle of his performance. "'Ek beedi ho jaye,' [could I have a beedi?] he asked," Singh remembers, smilingly. "That went into the recording."
The 69th year
The 69th edition of the Shriram Shankarlal Music Festival will be held from March 31 to April 3 at Kamani Auditorium.
Her daughter, Shobha Deepak Singh, had given a recorder to someone in the gathering to surreptitiously record the concert. "I made a copy and gave it to him," recalls Singh, 72, a few days before the three-day-long 69th edition of the festival kicks off at Kamani Auditorium in central Delhi.
Over the years, the festival has hosted legends such as vocalists Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Bhimsen Joshi, sarod player Ali Akbar Khan, flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia and Ravi Shankar - it also remains one of the oldest classical music festivals in Delhi. "Whenever I have rung up any musician, he never said no," says Singh, who is also director of the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, a Delhi-based cultural organisation that promotes music and performing arts through its schools and concerts.
For years, the festival, which later came to be called by its present name, would showcase performances by well-established artists. The format, however, changed in 1983. "We began to have one very senior musician and one young artist who we thought was going to be good," says Singh. "So, Ulhas Kashalkar, Ashwini Bhide Deshpande and Kaushiki Chakraborty came as relatively unknown people."
For an event that has spanned six decades, some performances stand out in Singh's memory: a "rare" concert at which sitar player Vilayat Khan, Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan played together; another in which shehnai maestro Bismillah Khan and Vilayat Khan played raga Yaman; and a performance by tabla player Zakir Hussain at an open-air concert on a particularly "windy day, with his hair going all over".
Equally unique are some of the demands made by the veterans who have performed at the festival. Sarod virtuoso Amjad Ali Khan, for instance, was reluctant to have his rendering recorded. "His wife would send out people to see whether I was recording," says Singh. "But I would buy the latest equipment from London and keep it under a chair. The music was for students to learn; it wasn't for me."
She also recalls how legendary vocalist Mallikarjun Mansur once made an unusual request in the middle of his performance. "'Ek beedi ho jaye,' [could I have a beedi?] he asked," Singh remembers, smilingly. "That went into the recording."
The 69th year
The 69th edition of the Shriram Shankarlal Music Festival will be held from March 31 to April 3 at Kamani Auditorium.
- Thursday, March 31: Nagaraja Rao Havaldar at 7 pm, followed by Ashwini Bhide Deshpande.
- Friday, April 1: Kaushiki Chakraborty at 7 pm, followed by M Venkatesh Kumar.
- Saturday, April 2: Shahid Parvez Khan at 7 pm, followed by Ulhas N Kashalkar.
- Sunday, April 3: Rashid Khan at 11 am. Rakesh Chaurasia at 7 pm, followed by Pandit Jasraj.