Rythmes de l'Inde : l'odyssée culturelle de KalaSudha (#1)

You can hear Hindustani (North Indian) classical music live in London at London Ragas, KalaSudha's concert series in London. Its evenings are baithaks: the audience sits close to the musicians. London Ragas can take place at different venues across London, and KalaSudha plans to add more baithaks in other parts of London. KalaSudha is based in London, so every concert tour it organises also plays London once.

See how to book tickets for a London concert and how to get to the venues.

Pandit Debasis Chakroborty is a Hindustani slide guitarist and the senior-most disciple of Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, and his playing reflects Kabra's style. His name is also written Debasis Chakraborty. He plays in the Senia-Maihar gharana and has taught since 1992.

He has been part of the Department of Performing Arts at Mangalayatan University since its inception, and returns to universities in Australia and the USA as a conductor-performer and artist-in-residence. He helped carry out a joint music research project between Mangalayatan University and Monash University, and has published 10 research papers.

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 Senia-Maihar gharana is the sarod lineage that Allauddin Khan founded at Maihar, a former princely state, in the early 20th century. Most sources treat it and the Maihar gharana as one school spanning several instruments. "Senia" names the Tansen line, which Allauddin Khan joined as a disciple of Wazir Khan of Rampur. He brought a dhrupad approach to the sarod, sitar, violin and bansuri. Among KalaSudha's artists, Pandit Debasis Chakroborty plays in the gharana.