On Friday August 29th 2008 8:00 pm my 90-minute Concertzender radio programme Gharana will focus on 39 year old tabla player Yogesh Samsi from Mumbai. He’s considered one of India’s very best musicians. I interviewed Yogesh earlier this year at the Darbar Festival in Leicester, England, where he played three very impressive sets: a completely unplugged evening concert with sitarist and surbaharist Irshad Khan, a morning concert with bansuri player Rakesh Chaurasia and the festival’s closing evening concert with sitarist Purbayan Chatterjee.

The programme’s first half features a musical portrait of Yogesh Samsi. He tells me about his music and his gurus, among them his father Dinkar Kaikini, famous singer of the Agra Gharana and of course he elaborates on Alla Rakha (1919-2000) -father of world renowned tabla player Zakir Hussain and more than twenty five years Ravi Shankar‘s principal accompanist- who taught Yogesh for 23 years in an intense and very fruitful guru-shishiya (guru-disciple) relationship. Alla Rakha is a most significant exponent of the Punjab gharana and Yogesh is an important successor of his guru’s legacy. Yogesh’s talking in the portrait shifts with recordings of his gurus, several of his recordings with a variety of raga artists and with recurring segments of a brilliant tabla solo performance, recorded in 2005.

In the second half of the programme, after the portrayal, there’ll be played a very nice segment of the great concert Yogesh did with sitarist Purbayan Chatterjee at this year’s Darbar Festival, then followed by two fantastic complete recordings of the tabla player with famous Mewati gharana violinist Kala Ramnath and with Ajoy Chakrabarty, the celebrated raga singer of the Patiala Kasur gharana. The programme closes with a breathtaking fifteen minute tabla solo performance by Yogesh Samsi in Deepchandi, a fourteen beat cycle.

For details, see the playlist below. You can listen online via De Concertzender or ‘on demand’ AFTER broadcast via this programme schedule page, by clicking on the speaker icon that will appear on top of the page after broadcast.

Check out the links in my message if you quickly want to find out more about several topics and artists concerned with my programme.

Have fun…

Playlist
The musical portrait of Yogesh, in the first 45 minutes of the programme, will feature segments -most of them short ones- of the following recordings:

Title: Tabla Solo in Teentaal (16 beats)
Artist: Yogesh Samsi
Composer: trad.
Album : The Tabla Series – Yogesh Samsi
Label and Year : Sense World Music 061 ; P 2005 C 2005

Title: Raga Devgiri Bilawal (Dhun in ektaal)
Artist: Ravi Shankar ; Alla Rakha
Composer: trad.
Album : The Teacher – Key Works
Label and Year : Manteca MANTCD036 ; C 2002

Title: Raga Rageshri – Khayal ‘Saban Sukh Deho’
Artist: Kaushiki Chakrabarty ; Yogesh Samsi
Composer: trad.
Album : Kaushiki
Label and Year : Sense World Music 097 ; P 2007 C 2007

then the following three complete recordings:

Title: Raga Bhairavi
Duration: 06:39
Artist: Kala Ramnath ; Yogesh Samsi
Composer: trad.
Album : Twilight Strings
Label and Year : RagaRanga RRCD-7000 ; P 2007 C 2007

Title: Raga Gunkali – Khayal ‘Gao Gunkali Guniyanme’
Duration: 13:14
Artist: Ajoy Chakrabarty ; Yogesh Samsi
Composer: trad.
Album : Jeevan
Label and Year : Sense World Music 069 ; P 2005 C 2005

Title: Tabla Solo in Deepchandi (14 beats)
Duration: 15:24
Artist: Yogesh Samsi
Composer: trad.
Album : The Tabla Series – Yogesh Samsi
Label and Year : Sense World Music 061 ; P 2005 C 2005

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