Moving my blog over to shawnmativetsky.com

Dear friends,

With the recent update of my website, I now have the ability to integrate the blog directly into the website, so that is what I am doing; it just makes sense. I will no longer be posting updates here. Thank you to all of you for your interest in my musical adventures. Please click along to my website for the continuation of this blog in the future! If you would like to update your RSS subscription, this is the new RSS URL: http://shawnmativetsky.com/blogs/blog.atom

I hope to see you over at shawnmativetsky.com!

Shawn

Friday 7 January 2011

Catherine Potter - A Canadian Pioneer of Indian Classical Music

This past December 3rd, Canada lost one of its greatest pioneers of Indian classical music - bansuri player Catherine Potter. A disciple of Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Catherine was one of Canada's top practitioners of Indian classical music, and was internationally renowned as a performer of bansuri.

Over the years, I had the fortune to perform with Catherine in a variety of settings - accompanying her in performances of Indian classical music, sitting in with the Duniya Project, accompanying her as a guest with fusion group Ragleela, and performing as part of the electronica group Ramasutra. But, before all that, before I even began to play tabla, Catherine was an important inspiration. The first-ever concert of Indian classical music that I ever attended was Catherine's bansuri recital. She encouraged me to begin my study of tabla, and put me in touch with my first tabla teacher in Montreal. In the years that followed, we would sometimes practice together, and whenever we met, Catherine would ask about my tabla practice and encourage me to push forward.

Here is a photo from an Indian classical music performance, accompanying Catherine back in 2008.

While many of us knew that Catherine was ill, her passing still came as a shock. News of her passing travelled like a wave through music circles around the world. In the days that followed, it became evident just how many people were touched by Catherine and her music. The world has indeed lost a great artist.

I have assembled a collection of links to newspaper articles published since Catherine's passing:





Catherine's memorial service will be held on January 22. All the details can be found here: http://www.memoria.ca/FuneralsSearch/?q=Potter&id=4637


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1 comment:

Shen said...

Wow what a shock. I met her and played with her very briefly when she visited my guru-ji's house once.
My condolences.

7 January 2011 at 18:11

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