Tabla wizard Tanmoy Bose says while popular genre of music requires talent for a wannabe young singer, in the pure classical gharana devotion and dedication for ages to the 'guru' are essentials.
The Taaltantra man, a close friend of the revered Shankar's family, told PTI in response to a question about reality shows, "All genres of music should thrive. Music has a universality in all forms. But classical music requires getting initiated to the ragas and then understanding the same.
This exploration has to be perfected by sitting at the feet of Ustad for years, scolded, reprimanded, beaten up but still not giving up.
"All classicists - vocal and instrumentation and of the present and older generations, had gone through this phase. Even contemporary singing requires hard toil but classical music involves a different kind of riywaz,'.He said on the sidelines of a classical concert 'Evening Raga'.
Tanmoy, who had recently been to UK for a concert in memory of Ravi Shankar, avers all present day classical musicians including Anoushka Shankar were products of this culture of hard work propelled by talent.
Talking about the 'Evening Raga' concert, which mesmerised audiences with the performances of Pt Debashis Bhattacharya, Pt Samir Nandi besides himself and a galaxy of pure classicists in vocal, table, pakhwaj, sitar, sarengi, sarod,, Tanmoy said, "I heard they have sought to bring classical music to the people's durbar by abolishing entry fee and that is laudable."
"The Morning Ragas (Chowdhury House music conference) is aimed at initiating one to the subtle and stirring magic of classical music," 'Calcutta Performing Arts Foundation' trustee Aniruddha Chowdhury said.
