Late Pandit Shivkumar Sharma’s music to be performed at a concert in Mumbai

A year can pass in the blink of an eye For Rahul Sharma though it has been a difficult one ldquoWe do miss himrdquo he admits during a conversation about his father late Pandit Shivkumar Sharma who passed away on this day in 2022 Yet in some ways it is the music that keeps the family going The music will indeed be the centrepiece as he takes the stage at the Nehru Centre today to pay tribute to his late fatherldquoMy earliest music ideologies were formed through him The fact that he is no more is true but each time I sit to practice or perform I can feel him with merdquo the musician says This makes the title of the concert this evening Shivji The Journey Continues feel all the more appropriateThe timing and the occasion makes the concert a rare glimpse into the musical heritage that accompanies Sharma No wonder then that the tickets are selling out fast with only phone reservations left The concert will see Ustad Shujaat Khan and Sharma individually pay tribute to the maestro ldquoI have chosen some older compositions by my father They were created during the 1970s and rsquo80s and there are very few records of them leftrdquo Sharma revealsRahul Sharma at an earlier performanceTitled gats compositions these pieces are set to specific ragas in cycles of seven beats or 16 beats ldquoThey will be performed in ragas such as kirwani charukesi or rasikapriya He my father had adapted many Carnatic ragas since they sounded better with the santoorrdquoFor Ustad Shujaat Khan the concert is about more than just a recollection of the maestrorsquos musical legacy ldquoI look at his life from the perspectives of musicality mdash unparalleled and beyond us in some ways mdash and his humanity He has left footprints in the musical sand for us to followrdquo the sitarist poetically summarises Recalling a conversation in Dhaka with the late Panditji Khan remarks ldquoI remember specifically spending a couple of hours talking with him about the feeling of ragas Everything comes down to how the musician and what the occasion makes them feelrdquoIn that traditional Indian music can be quite similar to jazz Sharma agrees saying ldquoIn classical music notes are mostly improvised within the periphery of the raga It is more similar to jazz in that sense because it is being improvised on the spotrdquo Khan though notes that it is the honour of paying tribute that makes the occasion more warranted Sharma adds that he also plans to exhibit his own style of the santoor in the second half of the evening ldquoBut we will place emphasis on his compositions since it is a tributerdquo he notesUstad Shujaat KhanIt is hard to not mention the word legacy in a conversation with Sharma With his own son nineyearold Abhinav already learning the santoor Sharma says it will continue but it extends to more than music ldquoThe creativity that went into the evolution of the santoor is unfathomable My father was synonymous with the instrumentrdquo The tradition continues through Sharmarsquos own sense of musical innovation Having collaborated with the likes of Kenny G Richard Clayderman and John McLaughlin Sharma recorded an orchestral piece with the Cape Town Philharmonic with the santoor leading a 50member orchestra last yearldquoIt is one of our joys that my father was able to witness the session After the session he told me how he had never imagined that the santoor would be the centrepiece of such a compositionrdquo Sharma recalls Titled The Symphony of Santoor with the Cape Town Philharmonic the album is set to come out later this year As for the future the santoor player says ldquoI am a composer at heart and always at work That journey will continue and so will the journey of the listeners who will join us to celebrate the eveningrdquoOn May 10 630 pm onwardsAt Nehru Centre Dr Annie Besant Road WorliCall 9223231359