Banaras Soul Music

Event time: 
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - 4:00pm
Event description: 

Pandit Rabindra Goswami, sitar
Ramchandra Pandit, tabla

Banaras Soul Music 2011

North Indian Classical Music

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2011 | 8 PM
BATTELL CHAPEL

presented with the Department of Religious Studies, Hixon Fund


Sitarist Rabindra Goswami has been a professional musician for 40 years and is recognized as one of the leading artists in the musically rich city of Varanasi, India. Unlike many of the Indian classical musicians who have become well known in the West, Goswami plays pure, traditional raga.  Goswami is a disciple of the late Smt. Amiya Devi, and also studied the ancient Dhrupad style with Pandit Ramakant Mishra. Later in life, he studied the advanced intricacies of raga with the great Dr. Balchandra Patekar of Bombay and Varanasi.  He has won a number of national awards in India, including first place in the Prayag Sangeet Samiti All-India Competition in 1967, and second place at Uttar Pradesh Sangeet Natak Academy in 1972. He is an “A level” Artist of All India Radio and Television, and has performed throughout India (Delhi, Bombay, Lucknow, Indore, Patna, Allahabad, many others) and the world (Greece, Nepal, Switzerland, United States). Goswami is also one of Varanasi’s foremost sitar teachers.

Tablaist Ramchandra Pandit has been a professional performer of classical, semi-classical, folk, and popular music for four decades. A life-long disciple of Pandit Sharda Sahai, he is a colorful performer and experienced educator who specializes in demonstrating and explaining Indian music to Western audiences. A Master of Music, he has also performed for All India Radio and played percussion on film soundtracks in Bombay for the legendary composer S.D. Burman. He currently directs the Sarangi Institute of Varanasi, an organization that he founded to preserve the sarangi, an instrument with a long pedigree in Indian Classical music but which now has few masters. He is also the former coordinator of the University of Wisconsin College Year in India Program, a position that he held for nearly 30 years.

Their website is at http://ramuandgoswami.wikispaces.com/ .