Wednesday 10 June 2009

Listening to Carnatic music on the Web

Carnaticmusicvideos is a fairly new website showcasing a selection of mostly contemporary musicians. While the videos are of good quality, I wonder why people would not want to rely on good old youtube and pick from an unlimited selection of music, sangeethapriya. or even stream from musicindiaonline.

I wonder what the USP of carnaticmusicvideos is?

Wednesday 3 June 2009

Carnatic International

It felt nice inside when I came across this write-up on the BBC about Patrick Ngcobo, a South African who came down passionate about South India's classical music and learnt music from Yesudas. [article]

As a child growing up in Calicut, I remember being amazed along with many friends, neighbours and elders, by a musician called Isabella Clinquart (I forget the spelling, I was very little) who performed an hour long carnatic music concert at the annual Tyagaraja Aradhana. Wonder what became of her.

John Higgins has to be one of the most well known and most loved of all non-Indian musicians who learnt and performed carnatic music with so much commitment. (He was born in Masachussets, US, and not in England like I had earlier thought.) I still try and close my eyes when I listen to him. The accent is hardly discernable.

Remarkable people.