Ganesh Rajagopalan on gamaka, the limits of comparison, and what instrumental music asks of its listeners After the May 17th concert at The Sheldon, an audience member asked a question that cut to something fundamental. He wanted to know: how important is it for an instrumentalist to know and understand the lyrics — the sahityam — of a composition in order to bring out its full emotional meaning, its bhavam? And can that meaning be conveyed through note embellishment and nuan

Kumaresh Rajagopalan on lyric, melody, and where the music actually lives. After the May 17th concert at The Sheldon, an audience member sent us an interesting question; he wanted to know: how important is it for an instrumentalist to know and understand the lyrics of a composition — the sahityam — in order to bring out its full emotional meaning, its bhavam? And can that meaning even be conveyed through note embellishment and nuance alone, without the words? Sahityam refers

Art forms do not disappear overnight. They thin out gradually — one unconsidered decision at a time, one missed opportunity after another, until the moment arrives when there are no longer enough people in the room who remember why it mattered. We are the generation that will determine whether that happens. Not in the abstract, not eventually — now. The timing of this post is not random, as things seldom are -- Ganesh & Kumaresh perform at The Sheldon Concert Hall on May 17.

The only qualification is curiosity. Last year, after Ramana Balachandhran's veena concert, someone stopped me and said they had never heard the veena or the mridangam before. They had been, in their own words, completely transported — and found it all unexpectedly eye- and ear-opening. It is a phrase that has stayed with me, because it captures something I believe deeply: that this art does not require preparation to move you. It only requires presence. I think about that ev