Los Angeles – Internationally acclaimed sarod player Pandit Rajeev Taranath will perform on Saturday, October 3, 2009 at the Edye Theater in Santa Monica. The concert will take place at 7:30pm and is sponsored by Santa Monica College.
Born into a highly creative family from Bangalore, India, Taranath began studying music, song and poetry with his father at a very early age. As a teenager, he attended a concert featuring classical Indian music that would forever change his life and artistic path. Under the tutelage of the great maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Taranath became dedicated to the sarod, the lyrical, deeply resonant relative of the lute. Today, nearly 40 years later, Taranath is considered one of India's top classical instrumentalists and his performances masterfully combine the depth and rigor of traditional Hindustani classical music with inspired imagination and emotional intensity. Taranath has received wide acclaim, including the Indian Government’s highest honor for the classical performing arts, the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi award.
Arts writer for the New York Times, Edward Rothstein, said of Taranath’s performance: “Rajeev Taranath's sarod improvisations mixed the spiritual and the spirited...the raga began with introspective meditation and proceeded into an exuberant rhythmic celebration.”
For Taranath, music transforms both musician and audience: “The performer, as T.S.Eliot says, lives at a conscious point where past and future are gathered. He has all the richness of the past, waiting to pass it on to the future.”
Joining Taranath on tabla for the Santa Monica performance will be long time collaborator and acclaimed percussionist Abhiman Kaushal. Mr. Kaushal is a sought-after concert accompanist and soloist and is presently on the faculty at UCLA.
The evening’s concert will be held in memory of the legendary maestro and teacher, the late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, who died June 18th.
"We are pleased to be able to bring celebrated sarod master Pandit Rajeev Taranath to Los Angeles" says Ben Wendel of Santa Monica College. "It's a rare opportunity not to be missed."
For more information on Pandit Rajeev Taranath, go to www.rajeevtaranath.com. To schedule an interview, contact Claudette Silver at claudette@coolizard.com or 615-202-0865. For ticket information for this performance in Santa Monica, go to www.thebroadstage.org/index.php/246 or call 310-434-3200.
article posted by:Leslie Schneider, A Music Work