The Indian classical music scene in Montreal seems to be growing of late. Not that we necessarily have more locals professionally playing Indian music, but that more and more artists are passing through Montreal to perform. This fall, it seems that there is a concert every week or two! The first couple of weeks of October were quite intense, as in the first week, my friend Jonathan Voyer hosted his santoor Guru, Pandit Satish Vyas, and the week after, Uwe Neumann's Guru, Sri Partha Bose came to visit.
In both cases, I was fortunate to be their accompanist for both their private teaching, and in concert!
On October 4, I organized a workshop for Pt. Satish Vyas (himself a senior disciple of the legendary Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma) at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. It was an introductory workshop on santoor and the North Indian classical music traditions.
The following day, I accompanied both Satishji and Jonathan for a concert at Tanna Schulich Hall, appropriately named Parampara, which was presented under the banner of Jonathan's organisation, Samskara. Tanna Hall has a perfect acoustic for Indian classical music, and while we did amplify a bit, the audio staff and equipment are of such quality, that we could not feel that we were being amplified. Crystal-clear sound!
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| Accompanying Jonathan Voyer. |
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| Parampara - Guru and Shishya! |
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| Accompanying Pandit Satish Vyas. |
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| Dan Blanchard (also a disciple of Pt. Satish Vyas, who kindly MCed for us in English), Satishji, and Jonathan. |
The next week, I had the great fortune to accompany sitarist Partha Bose in concerts at H-OM Yoga and Equilibrium Yoga on October 12 and 13 respectively. It was quite amazing to perform in such intimate settings with an artist of this calibre, who could just have easily filled a large concert hall. I considered myself privileged to have the best seat in the house, right next to Parthaji, where I could hear all the wonderful nuances of his beautiful alaps.
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| Accompanying Sri Partha Bose at Equilibrium Yoga. |
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| Aha! |
It was a great pleasure, and a great learning experience. I'm very much looking forward to both of their next visits to Montreal!
Thank you to Caroline Tabah for the photos!
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