Back live in the studio again this week! Similar to last week there is no set playlist, just a stack of vinyl to take the music wherever the mood leads, with the exception of a farewell to the great Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, who died last week aged 84. Born in 1938, Shivkumar Sharma learned to play the tabla and sing from his father, first performing on the tabla at age 12. When he was 14, his father gifted him a santoor. The santoor was mostly unknown in India, only used in Kashmir in a local classical style called Sufiana Mausiqi and in folk music. The santur is not well suited to Hindustani music because it is played with hammers so there is no way to play meend, the gliding between notes and it is also difficult to sustain notes. Shivkumar Sharma was hesitant at first, but took to the instrument and first presented it at age 17, in 1955 at a festival in Mumbai. He was received rapturously by the audience. That auspicious beginning was short lived. Over the next few years, as he tr
Shivji changed the history of the santoor forever, giving it a new identity indianewengland.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from indianewengland.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In the fifty years that I have known Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, who is lovingly addressed as Shivji, I must have witnessed at least two hundred of his recitals