Sarod Adrian McNeil

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Bob Chowdhury

@Qwest

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Posted: 19 years ago

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Adrian is quickly gaining recognition in India as a performer of considerable talent and experience. He was based in India for many years, mostly in Calcutta, Mumbai and Dehra Dun. He has undergone intensive training according to guru-shishya parampara (traditional methods) for more than twenty years under Pandit Ashok Roy, Professor Sachindranath Roy and Dr. Ashok Ranade. He regularly performs in major concerts in Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore and regional centres where his playing attracts critical acclaim. He often appears in the media in India and has performed for National Television and Radio along with leading cable television station Zee TV, and has been interviewed by major national daily newspapers. He has been interviewed and performed on CNN and Hong Kong Radio.

Adrian is currently living in Sydney, Australia where he performs regularly.
He completed a Ph.D in ethnomusicology (Hindustani Music) in 1992 (Monash University,Melbourne)
and is the research coordinator in the Department of Contemporary Music Studies,
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia..

Adrian McNeil

Sarod

A scintillating sarod performance at the India International Centre

Times of India (New Delhi)

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Bob Chowdhury

@Qwest

Inactive

Posted: 19 years ago

The Sarod

In the hands of an adept, the sound of the sarod is a delicious thing to savour. Capable of seducing the senses and nourishing the souls of connoisseurs of music, this instrument enables its performers to realise delicate tonal qualities and subtly manifest the feast of nuances and other delights of Hindustani classical music. It is this potential as much as anything else, that has made it a very suitable vehicle for instrumental music and ensured its central position in India's Hindustani Shastriya Sangit, (art music) tradition.

Edited by Qwest - 19 years ago

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Bob Chowdhury

@Qwest

Inactive

Posted: 19 years ago

Performances

Australia (Sydney)

THE MEHFIL SERIES
Our regular monthly series of traditional Hindustani music
in an informal and purely acoustic setting
Dickson Space
35-39 Dickson Street, Newtown

Sunday 20th February 2005 4.30pm
Sudhir Nayak (harmonium solo).
Sudhir is currently on tour from India
with Shubha Mudgal

Sunday 20th March 2005 4.30pm
We have cancelled this performance so that we can all go and hear the wonderful Hindustani vocalist from Kolkata, Ustad Rashid Khan perform at the Opera house on this day
visit naad for further information

Special Concert in Calcutta
3rd January 2005
Seagull Foundation
Bhawanipore
Calcutta

Sangeet Australia is pleased to announce the next program in the 2006 MEHFIL series.

Adrian McNeil (Sarod) - Bobby Singh (Tabla)

... my mind was out of my body floating in a large expanse of bliss .. The Australian

Sunday 14th May 2.30pm

Dickson Space
35-39 DIckson Street
Newtown

Seagull Books launched Adrian's book

Inventing the Sarod: A Cultural History on the 3rd of January. This was followed by a concert by Adrian on sarod and Prabhu Edourd on tabla. Chief guests at the event were Pandit Buddhdev Das Gupta, Ustad Ashish Khan and Ustad Mohammad Irfan Khan. Chief guests at the event were Pandit Buddhdev Das Gupta, Ustad Ashish Khan and Ustad Mohammad Irfan Khan.

In conjunction with the book lauch of Inventing the Sarod, The Seagull Foundation organised an exhibition of old and rare instruments. Also included were concerts on the sursringar, mohan veena and sarod by Anindya Banerjee and Soumjit Das Gupta
on the 9th and10th of January.

Past and Recent Performances include:

India: India International Centre, Delhi, Habitat Centre, Delhi, National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai, Karnataka Sangh, Mumbai, Seagull Media and Resource Centre, Kolkata

Hong Kong: Asia Arts Society, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong Centre for the Performing Arts.

Australia: Sydney Opera House, Government House, Sydney Town Hall, Brisbane Powerhouse, Melbourne University, Monash University.

Edited by Qwest - 19 years ago

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Bob Chowdhury

@Qwest

Inactive

Posted: 19 years ago

Artists:

Since April 2004, Sangeet Australia has been presenting a regular series of mehfils (soirees) in Sydney. These have been very successful and over time has attracted a loyal and dedicated audience.

Our regular artists are:

Adrian McNeil, Bobby Singh and Pt. Ramchandra Suman, and in 2005 we presented programs by Shubha Mudgal (khyal and thumri), Aneesh Pradhan (tabla), Sudhir Nayak (harmonium), Purbayan Chatterjee (sitar), Kala Ramnath (violin), Ashish Paul (tabla) and Rahul Deshpande (khyal), Krishna Dokka (harmonium). In 2006 we have so far organised a concert for Ulhas Kashalkar and their are plans for other exciting programs later in the year.

In July 2005 we organised a series of concerts in the Art Gallery of New South Wales as part of the Rajput: Sons of Kings exhibition of miniature paintings from the Rajput courts. Between 350 and 500 people attended each of the 4 programs. The first featured Adrian McNeil (sarod) and Pt Ramchandra Suman (tabla); the second, Pt Ramchandra Suman (pakhawaj and tabla solos); the third, Huma Wasan and Anjaline Prasad (Kathak dance) with live music by Adrian McNeil (sarod) and Pt Ramchandra Suman (tabla); and the fourth, Medha Pathak (khyal), Kaustubh Datta (harmonium) and Nikhil Harischandrakar (tabla).

We will be organising another series of concerts for the Art Gallery later in 2006.

So far in 2006 we have presented a major program in February by the very well known Kolkata based musician Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar accompanied by Suyog Kandalkar from Pune on harmonium and Mumbai based tabla player Yogesh Samsi. In March we assisted the Melbourne based Nataraj Cultural Centre present programs in Sydney by Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and Dr. L. Subramaniam. Meanwhile we are running our regular monthly mehfil programs and have one or two surprises lined up for later in the year for this series. In the meantime we are working with the Art Gallery of NSW to present a series of programs later in the year. Keep an eye out for these!!

Edited by Qwest - 19 years ago

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Bob Chowdhury

@Qwest

Inactive

Posted: 19 years ago

Originally posted by: Iron
Wow..i was not aware of him. I studied in Mussorie too but only in elementary 😛

Thanks Qwest 👏

Thanks Iron ji, I think Mussorie was on of beautiful place in the world I was there too in 1979 for 2 days was working with Modi corporation at that time. Love that place. One of my friend who introduce me with his music last Saturday buddy he is good.

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Bob Chowdhury

@Qwest

Inactive

Posted: 19 years ago

Inventing the Sarod: The Marketing of a Musical Tradition
Calcutta: Seagull Publications 2004

This is a major study of the sarod, a leading string instrument in Hindustani classical music. It documents the cultural origins, historical development and music styles of this instrumental tradition over the last three centuries. It does this by documenting the history of its musicians, their social organization, patron groups, modes of patronage, musical and aesthetic developments, instrument design and construction, narratives, musical terminology, and conception of musical sound over this period. In doing so it provides a detailed account of how this community of musicians devised and implemented strategies to deal with the major challenges to their survival thrown up by a succession of political economies from pre-modern times to the present. This study also highlights the cultural syncretism and diversity that has underpinned the development of the tradition to date. This study also sets out to construct a methodology that historicises sound and makes it an object of study.
The primary aim of the book is to address the current climate of contestation over the cultural ownership of the tradition and its history. Regard this as one of the cultural consequences of globalization and part of a wider proclivity towards the re-invention of the past. In doing so the study draws upon a diverse range of materials and sources. These include the rich oral histories and narratives that pervade the tradition; Sanskrit texts on music; primary materials and studies in vernacular languages such as Bengali, Hindi, Urdu and Farsi; Indian musicology, ethnomusicology, philosophy and cultural theory; contemporary historical, anthropological and sociological studies; colonial records and ethnographies; sound recordings; and the author's fieldwork and rigorous training on sarod over the last two decades.

Review of book
Inventing the Sarod : A Cultural History. Adrian McNeil. Calcutta (Kolkata):
Seagull. 2004. pp. xii+277. Includes glossary, bibliography and index. Rs 575.
ISBN 81 7046 213 4

There are two main reasons why Adrian McNeil's masterly study of the sarod is likely to become a standard work of reference on the subject. The first is the comprehensive range of the work: it answers, or at least addresses, most of the questions that arise in one's mind when one considers the history of the sarod as an instrument and the development of sarod styles in the last two centuries. Secondly, it sensibly blends a number of critical approaches to the study of musical instruments and forms. In doing so, it is able to avoid the limitations of a purely organological or purely ethno-musicological approach. The impressive archival and field research that is gone into this study is demonstrated by the author's ability to negotiate historical, ethnological, sociological and above all musical issues.

The sarod as McNeil sees it is essentially both less and more than a single defined instrument. On the one hand it is part of a family of short-necked lutes that were played and still are played in extensive areas of South and Central Asia. On the other, the sarod is shorthand for a number of individualized instrument types that were evolved by musicians and master craftsmen in response to their own musical requirements. In doing so he is able to avoid taking sides in the heated debates over the "origins" of the sarod. He traces with care and expertise the role played by Pathan musicians – who were also mercenaries and horse traders - in the evolution of the instrument. The detailed study of specific ethnic groups in transmitting the immediate precursors (like the Afghani rabab) of the instrument is one of the strongest sections of the book (Chaps. 2 and 3). Systems of patronage receive close attention. McNeil deals circumspectly with the various debates over the term sarod itself, and tries to account for the emergence of the terms sarod and sarodi. (An authority he quotes describes the Pathan sarodi as playing on the "rabab or sarod" but also being a "tumbler", p.18). We read of the Pathan settlements in Shajahanpur where apparently there were in the 18th century no less than 55 mohullas or neighbourhoods of Pathan troops in the town, of which no less than 11 were of "sarod" players alone (p. 48).

The encounter of Pathan musicians with the proponents of Seniya music in various centres of patronage in North India is the next part of the story. The accounts of Rampur and Lucknow in this connection give a clear idea of the way in which Pathan musicians found employment in these places and the way in which the instruments that they used underwent changes as new musical requirements were imposed on them. This story is, in its basic outlines, known well enough. But what distinguishes McNeil's study is his sensitivity to a central issue that figures in all these exchanges and transformations: that of musical sound. The encounter with dhrupad singers and been players did not evidently make sarod players alter their instruments to merely incorporate new elements of repertoire or accommodate new techniques. There is also a search, which characterizes the history of Hindustani music as a whole, of a certain quality of sound which becomes the ground on which musical values are ideologized. This, one feels, has been insufficiently theorized, and McNeil's study is an important step in this direction.
Mc Neil surveys the major schools and styles of sarod playing in India. The accounts of the origins and early development of the styles is admirably exhaustive. The picture that he gives of the present state of these schools is however somewhat patchy: apart from occasional errors (Uma Guha is not Shyam Ganguly's daughter as stated on p 195; the sitar player Sanjoy Bandyopadhyay is mentioned as Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay on p. 223), the account of contemporary sarod players is too cursory to serve any useful purpose. The sections on the means in which sarod players, like other exponents of Indian classical music, are made available to a world market is sensitive and insightful, though perhaps a little too abbreviated. The same is true of the last chapter, entitled "Do We Deserve the Sarod?" Clearly McNeil has important things to say on both these scores, but perhaps they deserve a separate study.

Inventing the Sarod is clearly one of the most important books on North Indian classical music in recent times, and one hopes that it will set the tone for work of the same high quality. It is important, perhaps, that the author is both a performer and a scholar, and as such is alive to both the intricacies of modern historical scholarship as well as the fine nuances of the music itself.

Amlan Das Gupta
Professor of English
Jadavpur University
Kolkata.

Edited by Qwest - 19 years ago

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Bob Chowdhury

@Qwest

Inactive

Posted: 19 years ago

Originally posted by: charades
Another Great Post Qwest Da.. 👏 👏

VJ, one my very good friend of mine introduce me to his music last Saturday, he himself is good composer and a very good Guitarist he is cool and very good musician.

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Bob Chowdhury

@Qwest

Inactive

Posted: 19 years ago

Australian Institute of Eastern Music presents
Adrian McNeil (sarod) &
Aneesh Pradhan (tabla)

An intensely dynamic partnership that conjures up the most sensuous flavours and sublime sounds of Hindustani classical music. Adrian and Aneesh have thrilled audiences in India, Australia and Hong Kong over recent years. Their music is passionate, virtuosic and utterly compelling.

'A scintillating sarod performance at the India International Centre.'
- The Times of India (New Delhi).
'Aneesh Pradhan belongs to the new generation of percussionists in whose hands the future of tabla is secure.'
- Financial Express

Adrian McNeil, sarod
Melbourne-born Adrian McNeil is quickly gaining recognition in India as a performer of considerable talent and experience, based on many solo sarod performances in major concerts in Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore and regional centres. He has performed with some of the best tabla players in India, such as Aneesh Pradhan, Debashish Brahmachari and Gladwin Charles. Adrian began his training in Hindustani music in 1980 with Pt Ashok Roy, the renowned sarodiya, himself a long-time disciple of the legendary Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Over the last few years he has become a disciple of the Mumbai-based,senior musician and sitariya, Prof. Sachindra Nath Roy (Ashok Roy's uncle and a senior disciple of two of the most important figures in 20th century Hindustani music, Ustad Alauddin Khan and Ustad Enayat Khan). Adrian has made a number of recordings of Hindustani classical music, and more recently has recorded cross-cultural music along with the well known guitarist Guy Strazzullo. Adrian has also completed a PhD in music and writes extensively on music. His book Inventing the Sarod (a major study of the sarod tradition in India) is being published by the prestigious Seagull Publications in Calcutta. He is currently a senior research fellow in the Centre of Contemporary Music Studies at Macquarie University, Sydney.

For more information:

Aneesh Pradhan, tabla
Aneesh Pradhan, one of India's foremost tabla players has performed extensively in India and abroad to wide critical acclaim. He has been featured at major events throughout Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North America and Africa, and participated in several cross-cultural musical collaborations. In addition to performing as a soloist and accompanist on national and international record labels, Aneesh has expanded his musical persona to compose music for many film and theatre projects. Aneesh spent fruitful years as artist-in-residence at the University of New England, Australia, and as guest lecturer at the Music Department, University of Mumbai, and several other universities in other countries. He has put to use the experience he gained as teacher in the many lecture-demonstrations and workshops that he has conducted. Aneesh remains a keen student of music, despite the acclaim and awards he has received over the years. An intensive period of study under the illustrious tabla maestro Pandit Nikhil Ghosh, from whom he has learnt the traditional compositions from the Delhi, Ajrada, Lucknow, Farukhabad and Punjab schools of tabla playing, has enabled Aneesh to widen his musical horizons.

Edited by Qwest - 19 years ago

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Bob Chowdhury

@Qwest

Inactive

Posted: 19 years ago

Tue May 23 23:18:54 2006.

Desi Art & Culture

An evening of classical Jugalbandi

Melbourne, March 28: Visiting Indian tabla master Aneesh Pradhan joined with renowned Australian sarod player Adrian McNeil for a scintillating evening of swar and tal in the sublime acoustic surrounds of the Fitzroy Gallery, here today.

It was a captivating spell as the artists played to an electrifying level of synergy and virtuosity - an intricate jugalbandi of buoyant symphony that flowed from their fingers and enveloped the spirits of the audience.

Would you ever think of music from the tabla? Well! that exactly was what Aneesh Pradhan elicited from the tabla - a rhythmic melody that perfectly encapsulated the unblemished and expressive swara modulation on the sarod.

One of India's finest tabla players, Aneesh studied tabla under the illustrious maestro Pandit Nikhil Ghosh has also recorded with contemporary musicians in the West as well as immersing himself in ancient Indian musical traditions. In Australia, he is known for his work as an Artist-in-Residence at New England University, Armidale, and for his role as the teacher of Australian tabla aficionado, Bobby Singh.

Aneesh is today regarded as an accomplished soloist and a perfect foil to vocal and instrumental music or dance recitals.

Adrian McNeil has studied Hindustani classical music under Pt. Ashok Roy, the renowned sarodiya, and over the last few years has also become a disciple of the Mumbai-based, senior musician and sitariya, Prof. Sachindra Nath Roy, a senior disciple of Ustad Alauddin Khan and Ustad Enayat Khan.

Part of the program to promote diverse music, by Boite, the evening was a unique North Indian classical fusion of sarod and the tabla drumming up a pulsating jugalbandi, with the occassional sound of an aeroplane soaring above.

Edited by Qwest - 19 years ago

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Bob Chowdhury

@Qwest

Inactive

Posted: 19 years ago

#10

Musings on music MANJARI SINHA

Artistes and scholars got together in Mumbai recently to discuss the meaning of improvisation.

ACROSS BARRIERS Sarod exponent Adrian McNeil A three day symposium, 'Improvisation in Music' organised jointly by the ITC Sangeet Research Academy (West), the Music Forum and the National Centre of Performing Arts (NCPA) brought together scholars, musicologists and musicians from across the world this past week at the NCPA, Mumbai. The keynote address was delivered by Frans de Ruiter, Principal, Royal Conservatoire, The Hague, and Dean, Faculty of Creative & Performing Arts, Leiden University, who maintained, "Composition and improvisation are not opponents. The phenomenon of a composition is relative, despite all admiration we can have for the genius of a composer.". He reiterated that good performers never play the readymade score, they always deviate from what has been notated, especially as far as tempo, metre and rhythm is concerned. Ashok Ranade talked about improvisation in Indian cultural expressions, especially in music and theatre, making his point with examples by Shubha Mudgal's vocal, Anish Pradhan's tabla and Adrian's sarod playing in music, and Ila Bhat's vachika and angika abhinaya as theatrical expressions. Wim Van Der Meer, Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam, spoke about the interrelation between composing, interpreting and improvising while presenting his paper on 'The Margins of Musical Creation'. Joep Bor, Associate Professor of World Music from Rotterdam, cited Bharat, Matanga Muni and Sangita Ratnakar while speaking on 'Improvisation in Melodic Instrumental Music'. Jose Luis Martinez from Brazil, a student of Ustad Fariduddin Dagar, spoke on 'Musical Semiotics in Improvisation'.

Richard Widdess, Professor of Musicology, University of London, focused on the historical perspectives of improvisation and alap - the anibaddh sangeet (unconstrained music) - giving examples from the Brihaddeshi and the Buddhist Charyapada. Ritwik Sanyal, Reader, Banaras Hindu University, also a disciple of the late Ustad Zia Moiuddin Dagar, spoke at length on improvisation in the nibaddha sangeet, especially Dhrupad, with appropriate examples in his own authentic renderings with the tuneful background of an electronic tanpura. The session concluded with a panel discussion moderated by Arvind Parikh and Ashok Ranade with panelists like Dinkar Kaikini, Prabha Atre, Sudhir Mainkar and Phalguni Mitra from SRA Kolkata making relevant statements regarding improvisation in different genres of Hindustani music.

Edited by Qwest - 19 years ago

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