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Rasarang
North Indian Classical Music
Rajeev Taranath: Sarod
Abhiman Kaushal: Tabla
Chad Hamill: Tanpura
Producer:
Ates M. Temeltas
Recorded on April 26, 2003 in Los Angeles, California
Recorded and Mixed by Rob Beaton and Chad Hamill
Graphic Design: Siir Özbilge - ilerix.com
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Rajeev Taranath
(Born in Bangalore, India on October 17, 1932)
I will just close my eyes, listen to the mood and absorb what is going on around
me and the music will come. 'You are the music while it lasts, as T.S. Elliot
once said'. - Rajeev Taranath
Rajeev Taranath is one of the leading performers of the sarod today. Hailed
a prodigy in Hindustani vocal music, Rajeev Taranath had been earlier trained
by his father Pandit Taranath and other eminent musicians and was a concert
and radio artist before he was twenty.
In his early twenties, he attended a concert in Bangalore that would forever
change the direction of his music and his life, a duet between Ustad Ali Akbar
Khan (Khansahib) and Pandit Ravi Shankar. Rajeevji describes the impact Khansahib’s
playing had on him that fateful evening:
“All ambitions and dreams disappeared when I heard Khansahib’s sarod.
When the concert ended, like the aftermath of a thunder shower, everything was
so clear to me... like you hear separate drops of water dropping off ends of
leaves, clearly, like that.”
Soon after, he began his training under Khansahib, a path from then until now
that stretches nearly a half-century. Rajeevji has also received important guidance
from the two other legendary musicians of the Maihar lineage, Pt. Ravi Shankar
and Smt. Annapurna Devi.
Rajeev has toured extensively as a performer in India, Australia, Europe, Yemen
and throughout the U.S. He has also composed music for several nationally and
internationally honored Indian films. He is the recipient of the Indian Government's
highest award in the arts, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 1999-2000, given
in recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of Hindustani Instrumental
music. In 1998 he received the prestigious national Award, 'Chowdiah Award for
Music', from the Government of Karnataka in India for excellence in the field
of instrumental music. He has also received awards from the Indian State Government
of Karnataka for his contribution to music, - the Sangeet Nritya Akademi Award
in 1993 and the Karnataka Rajya Prashasti in 1996. In 1980 he was the subject
of a documentary made for the television in Eden, Yemen, entitled ‘Finnan
Min-Al-Hind’ (Artist from India).
Pt. Taranath’s early exposure to diverse languages has made him a respected
linguist. He has written literary criticism on Kannada works, and is proficient
in Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, Urdu and some Arabic.
Rajeev Taranath was a Ford Foundation scholar from 1989 to 1992 and researched
during this period on the Teaching Techniques of the Maihar-Allaudin Gharana
(or music lineage).
Rajeev Taranath shares deep concerns with others of strong
social consciousness especially in regard to today's movement in India and the
world toward communalism and religious fundamentalism. Throughout his life he
has kept questions about the nature of social inequities at a constant boil
-- putting pressure on himself and others to think and feel more deeply about
their humanity, hoping to provoke reflection and thoughtful response.
He is currently head of the Indian music program in the World Music Department
at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, California where he
teaches six months of the year. He spends the remaining part of the year in
India and performing worldwide.
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