Aftaab-e-Sitar : Ustad Vilayat Khan - Page 6

SITAR ARTIST SHARES INDIA'S MUSICAL HERITAGE

BY CYNTHIA LEE / UCLAToday Staff

Four decades ago, a tie-dyed generation of Beatles fans looking to the East for mystical enlightenment lost themselves in the hypnotic sounds of the sitar in the hands of Ravi Shankar.

Now a new generation on campus is discovering the sitar in a more meaningful light, played in a different style by a virtuoso who is regarded by Indian audiences as one of the foremost North Indian classical musicians of his generation.

Shujaat Husain Khan is building a new appreciation for Indian classical music at UCLA.

"Ravi Shankar's association with the Beatles made the sitar a familiar instrument to Westerners," noted Khan, who has performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London as well as Carnegie Hall in New York. "But over the years, they have started to understand Indian music on a much deeper and more refined level. Westerners are now able to pick up nuances, like the stylized differences between Ravi Shankar and our style."

Khan teaches UCLA students the sitar as a visiting professor in the Department of Ethnomusicology.

"I enjoy working with students from different parts of the world — it gives us all a chance to get inside each other's culture," Khan said.

He is a seventh-generation sitar master, the product of a prominent musical dynasty based on the age-old concept of Khandan, the lineage through which sons inherit their status, in this case, as professional musicians.

Khan is the subject of a documentary, "Khandan: The Musical Heritage of Shujaat Khan," by videographer Arundhati Sen Neuman, who vividly recounts the upbringing and rigorous training of this khandani musician.

From his lineage, the prominent Imdad Khan Gharana family, have come some of the most influential sitarists of their time, including his father, Ustad Vilayat Khan. The elder Khan developed the vocal "singing" style, called gayaki ang, that his son now performs at venues all over the world.

"The objective is to follow the human voice, which remains the most direct connection between humans," Khan explained. "So although the strokes on the right hand are used as before, the gayaki ang involves movements with the left hand that seek to bring a continuity in sound and composition similar to the human voice." In his hands, the lutelike sitar literally sings with a full range of emotions and expressions.

Khan always knew from early childhood that his destiny would be music. At 3 years old, he was already playing two to three hours a day under the tutelage of his father, who used musical games to sustain the boy's interest.

Visits to his grandfather's home in Calcutta became opportunities to play the sitar for four to five hours straight with his cousins, their fingers flying over the frets, each trying to outplay the other.

"It is special that a person, like me, gets a chance to grow up surrounded by music," he said, although he admits, "I did wish I had a choice. There were times when practice was tiring and heartbreaking, especially when you knew that your friends were having a good time."

Today, Khan carries on the grand tradition and revels in what he calls "an immense appreciation of Indian music. I can see reverence for it growing as people understand more and more of its intricacies."

Shujaat Husain Khan

Shujaat Husain Khan is perhaps the greatest North Indian classical musician of his generation. He belongs to the Imdad Khan gharana (tradition) of the sitar (lute) and is the seventh in the unbroken line from his family that has produced many musical masters. His style known as the gayaki ang, and is imitative of the subleties of the human voice.

Shujaat Husain Khan is the son and disciple of master sitarist Ustad Vilayat Khan. His musical pedigree continues back through his grandfather, Ustad Inayat Khan; his great-grandfather, Ustad Imdad Khan; and his great-great-grandfather, Ustad Sahebdad Khan - all leading artists of their generation. At the age of three Shujaat began practicing on a specially made small sitar, and by the time he was six, the child prodigy started giving public performances.

Since then he has performed at all the prestigious music festivals in India and has traveled around the world performing in Asia, Africa, North America and Europe. Shujaat Husain Khan has developed his own unique style of playing Indian classical music. His approach to rhythm is largely intuitive, fresh and spontaneous, always astonishing his audiences. He is also known for his exceptional voice, which he uses for singing folk songs and poetry. In 2001 he was awarded the Rashtriya Kumar Sammaan, India's highest honor for a classical musician under the age of 45.
Shujaat dedicates a large part of his life to teaching music in India and abroad; he has been invited back to UCLA as a visiting professor for the 2004/2005 academic year. He is available for touring in 2004/2005 in celebration of his newest release, Hawa Hawa (Global Village). Hawa Hawa is a recording of traditional folk melodies that form the basis of Indian classical music. Shujaat's style of playing the sitar employs the human voice, and he has an extraordinary range of poetry from which he sings spontaneously in performance.