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GIVING VOICE - ASHISH SANKRITYAYAN (INDIA)
[April 2008]
A PRACTICAL INTRODUCTION TO DHRUPAD SINGING
  
TWO DAY WORKSHOP
MONDAY 31 MARCH – TUESDAY 1 APRIL
Dhrupad is the oldest surviving form of classical music in India and traces its origin to the chanting of vedic hymns and mantras. Primarily a vocal genre, Dhrupad is characterized by a purity of tone and raga. Its architectural beauty, systematic development, spaciousness, theatre and beauty of sound offer a sense of peace and contemplation to the listener. Though a highly developed classical art with a complex and elaborate grammar and aesthetics, it is also a form of worship, and can be seen at different levels as a meditation, a mantric recitation, a worship, a yoga based on the tantric knowledge of the nadis and chakras and also purely as a performing art portraying a universe of human emotions - serenity, compassion, sensuality, pathos, strangeness, anger and heroism and subtle shades of them all.
Fundamental to Dhrupad singing is the practice of Nada Yoga, in which, through various yogic practices, the singer develops the inner resonance of the body, and can make the sound resonate and flow freely through the entire region from navel to head. This enables the singer to produce a vast palette of subtle tone colours and microtonal shades.
A Dhrupad performance starts with the Alap, a slow and contemplative development of a Raga (mode) using free flowing melodic patterns, but the tempo increases in stages, and in the faster passages playful and vigorous ornaments predominate. Dhrupad Alap is followed by the singing of a composition with rhythmic improvisation, to the accompaniment of a barrel drum called the pakhawaj (ancestor of the tabla).
The dedication and distinction of the Dagar family has been deeply influential on the practice and understanding of Dhrupad in India and beyond - in the Dagar tradition, the music is deeply spiritual and meditative; the notes are not treated as fixed points, but as fluid entities with infinite microtonal shades, with a wealth of depth of melodic nuance.
Ashish Sankrityayan is an exponent of the Dagar Tradition of Dhrupad; he has trained for twenty years under three maestros of the Dagar family and is well known for his frequent concert appearances and teaching. Ashish started his musical training at an early age, first learning the sitar and subsequently vocal music, and it was whilst studying mathematics university that he was inspired to take up Dhrupad when he heard a recording of the senior Dagar brothers Nasir Moinuddin and Nasir Aminuddin Dagar, and met Rudra Veena maestro Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar who initiated him into the art. He often perfoms and collaborates with European medieval, renaissance and contemporary musicians.
Festival Tickets
1 DAY £65 (£45 unwaged)
2 DAYS £125 (£85 unwaged)
3 DAYS £185 (£125 unwaged)
FULL FESTIVAL TICKETS: £300 (£200 unwaged)
Full Festival Ticket includes all events, and is valid from the evening of Thursday 27 March to 4pm on Tuesday 1 April,3 Day, 2 Day and 1 Day Tickets include access to your workshop, the performance the evening before and the talk or lecture-demonstration either the day before or following on from the workshop - you choose.
Each ‘Festival Day’ begins at 9.30am. You can choose from a range of different workshops, but note that the workshops are for one, two, three or five days and you need to book for the total duration of the workshop course you have chosen. The workshops will run from 9.30am, with a break for lunch, until 3.30pm. The day continues with presentations between 4pm and 5.30pm, more presentations between 7pm and evening performances from 8.30pm.
Additional documentation on GIVING VOICE - ASHISH SANKRITYAYAN (INDIA)
is available:
GV_BOOKING_FORM_and_INFO_2008.doc
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