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Indian Project
After 20 years of jazz, I discovered the India Classical Music, in 1997, during a first trip in India. The architecture of this music, as well as its spiritual depth linked to its sociological and historical dimensions and its grammatical development were, for me, vibrant, incandescent and transcendent. I was thrilled. So emotionally impressed, I decided to change my focus and enlarged my musical aspirations. The question was then to find the most appropriate musical instrument to manage a fusion with this music to which I could bring my personal, western, touch.
my instrument.
For over 25 years, I have been a guitarist; it was, then, natural to adapt my own instrument in order to fulfil my expectations. The Sit-guitar.
"Through music you express yourself....My approach to music is very deep. I do not compromise with anybody or anything else in the world. A musician must lift up the souls of the listeners, and take them towards Space."
Nikhil Banerjee.
"L’architecture musicale, associée à la dimension spirituelle de cette musique, sa profondeur ainsi que son développement grammatical produisent chez moi une émotion réelle qui va jusqu'à transformer mes aspirations musicales.
L'écoute de NIkhil Banerjee a certainement contribué à me donner envie d'étudier cette musique." Mark Liebeskind
Immersion in India Classical, my education. (1997-2007)
It took me several years to perfect and be able to emerge in Indian Classical. Since 1997, I was taught within the India classical rules, working with Amar Nath Mishra and Raj Ban Singh (sitar-players from Benares) Vikaj Maharaj (sarod-player from Benares), Vinod Lélé (tabla-player from Benares), Sabri Khan (sarangi-player from Delhi), Roy Chaudhury (sarod-player from Delhi) and Atul Upaydhe (violon-player from Pune). However, the learning was initially difficult presumably due to my expectations as a professional musician and teacher. I had to learn the emotional expressiveness of the strings, as do Indians musicians, intense focus and concentration from a master. I was still searching for dimensions, a spiritual quest. This was achieved in 2004 when I, first, met Kushal Das, a sitar-player from Kolkata. The meeting with Kushal has been determinant.
my current Indian project.
It is not possible to describe Indian classical music in few words. What’s written below is just a little introduction.
Indian classical music has its origin as a meditation tool to attain self-realization. The Indian classical known as the Hindustani (or North Indian style) developed from the 13th century. This music is based on the Nava Rasa (the 9 sentiments and feelings), ragas (melody) and talas (rhythms). There is no harmony, modulation and other structural elements as found in Western music. This music is based almost only in improvisation, as Jazz but with a totally other logic.
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Raga in Sanskrit means passion, colour, and attachment. The raga’s structure has several parts:
Alap : means introduction in sanskrit. It is a slow, rhythmless exposition of the rag. the alap requires strict adherence to the rules. This requires a firm knowledge; therefore the execution of alap is very difficult.
Jor : is an intermediate introductory style. It is characterized by the use of a slow to medium rhythm. There is not a fully developed cycle so it is never accompanied by tabla.
Jhala : is a fast paced alternation of main melody string and chikari. This lends itself to interesting permutations of both rag and tala simultaneously. This exciting style has become an obligatory conclusion to any instrumental recital.
Composition on rhythm’s cycles : Tabla start playing with the instrument with a precise a rhythm’s cycle, give life to the raga. A dialogue starts between the 2 musicians with a lot of interactions till the end which stop also very fast.
The raga could be described as an idiosyncratic representation of a specific human emotion or mood. For this reason, it is also associated to a particular time of the day (or season). It is, therefore, the archetype of improvisation. Raga is a pool of notes that contains a certain pattern of ascending and descending pitches; being the starting material for composition. Therefore, around raga's themes, all permutations and combinations are made possible, leading to innumerable emotions, and variations in the way to apprehend one raga piece. In this respect, ragas are close to jazz. From the rest, ragas are unrelated to jazz harmony; it remains a quest, a sensory input, a spiritual journey.
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Today, the aim of my project is to combine the depth, the spiritual dimension and the rhythmic parameters and melody, which are intrinsically part of the ragas with, tonal parameters, using my own background as composer and jazz improvisator. I also want to associate it to my world music experience, past and current, which mean to associate also some of the African parameters. To be noted that the Indian music is enriched in folkloric music and I’ve dipped out of these resources to enrich my compositions. As a composer, I would like to create a hybrid Indian-Western-ethno-jazz music. |
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Involvement in Indian Classical, my previous projects.
The first project, I was involved in, was Between, in 2001. Together with Stephan Rigert, the Between group was composed of 7 musicians of multi-influences (2 Swiss, 2 Africans, 2 Indians, 1 Jamaican). In the project, I composed the majority of the tunes.
During the tours in Germany and Switzerland, we recorded the CD "Between"
Since 2001, I had played with several Indian musicians including
- 2001 concert in Delhi with the Tassir group, (soufi music)
- 2002 : Concerts in Benares with Vikaj (sarod) and Apu Maharaj (tabla)
- 2002-03 Concerts in Bombay with Rupak Kulkarni (flute) Pradipto Sengupta (mandolin), Amit Satyajit Talwalkar (tabla), Mukul Dongare (drums)
- 2003 Concert in Hyderabad and in London with Rakesh Chaurasia (flute) et Bhavani Shankar Pakawaj (drums)
- 2004 Concert in Delhi with the group Kashik
- 2005 Concert in Goa and Pune with Julien Di Maiolo (Tabla)
- 2007 Concert in Benares and Kolkata and Switzerland with Sandip Ghosh (Tabla) and in Geneva (Switzerland) Nabankur Bhattacharia
- 2008 Concerts in France, Switzerland and India with Nabankur Bhatthacharia (Tabla) and Sukhdev Mishra (Violin)
- 2008 Musical performances with dancer in Switzerland and in France.
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