Performers
Ravi Shankar (sitar)
Anoushka Shankar (sitar)
Bikram Ghosh, Tanmoy Bose (tablas)

Programme
Raga Anandi Kalyan
Raga Rangeela Piloo

A wonderful oppportunity to enjoy the great sitar player Ravi Shankar in concert. Though well into his 80s, and having gone through various bouts of illness, when he appeared here at Union Chapel, London in summer 2002, he was at his consummate best.

Indian classical music is, of course, an astoundingly deep, rich and long tradition. Shankar has been its great populariser of the west, and has worked with artists as diverse as Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrakh, and the Beatles. The expressive depth of a raga (impossible to translate in to English easily, but essentially a scalic-cum-melodic idea which is used as the basis for long improvisations) is as vast as the Indian subcontinent. Typically an improvisation consists of a long, slow, meditative alap on the sitar; a jor with more movement, as the tablas join; and a fast and furious gat where the rhythmic complexity of Indian music will bewilder even the fastest-counting western listener.

Shankar plays here with his young daughter Anoushka, who is gradually developing her own style. But, as any sitar player can tell you, the apprenticeship under your guru is extremely long - a matter of years. No quick rise to fame here!