Cambridge Ragas: Resonance of Sitar, Slide Guitar, and Tabla

Cambridge Junction is a venue on Clifton Way, Cambridge CB1 7GX. The venue says it is less than 10 minutes' walk from Cambridge Railway Station.

The venue publishes its own travel and access detail on its Maps and Directions page at junction.co.uk/your-visit/maps-and-directions.

For KalaSudha concerts in the city, see Indian classical music in Cambridge.

KalaSudha presents live Indian classical music in Cambridge, England, and lists each concert on its Cambridge page with a link to book. To hear when the next Cambridge date is set, read how to hear about new Cambridge concerts.

KalaSudha has presented concerts at West Road Concert Hall, Lee Seng Tee Hall at Wolfson College and Cambridge Junction. For the artists, see which artists have played Cambridge.

Pandit Debasis Chakroborty plays Indian slide guitar in Hindustani classical music and has over 25 years of professional experience. He plays in the Senia-Maihar gharana. He has been part of the Department of Performing Arts at Mangalayatan University since its inception. He is also a regular visitor, conductor-performer and Artist-in-Residence at universities in Australia and the USA. He helped carry out a joint music research project between Mangalayatan University and Monash University, and has published 10 research papers.

Ustad Akram Khan is a tabla player and the seventh generation of his family in the Ajrara gharana. His father was Hashmat Ali Khan. As a boy he trained first with his great-grandfather, Mohammad Shafi Khan, and later with Niazu Khan. For over four decades he has kept the gharana's repertoire alive, and he preserves more than 15 of its classic qaidas through his teaching and concerts. He made his international debut in Norway in 1987 and has played on All India Radio more than 800 times.

The Indian slide guitar is a guitar laid flat across the lap and stopped with a steel bar instead of fingers on frets. It is an instrument of Hindustani classical music, the classical music of North India. Sympathetic strings ring underneath the melody unstruck, and the player plucks extra drone (chikari) strings.

The bar never leaves the string, so one note travels into the next without a break. For its history and players, see the Indian slide guitar page. You can learn it with KalaSudha in the online academy.

The Ajrara gharana, also spelt Ajrada, is a school of tabla that arose in the late 18th or early 19th century in the village of Ajrara, in Meerut district. Most accounts trace it to two brothers, Kallu Khan and Miru Khan, who learnt in Delhi, making it an offshoot of the Delhi gharana. Its players add the ring finger to the Delhi technique. It is best known for qaidas, themes with set variations, in aad laya, three strokes to every two beats. Ustad Akram Khan plays in the gharana today.