Pandit
Pran Nath Memorial Tributes
Concert
of Pre-recorded Tapes of Evening Ragas
Sunday,
June 13, 8 pm
MELA Foundation Dream House
275 Church Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10013
Between Franklin & White Streets in Tribeca
Admission $16, MELA Members, Seniors, Student ID, $14.
Limited seating.
Reservations recommended.
Pandit Pran Nath
Ragas Pat Dipak & Raga
Darbari “91 X 18 PM
NYC”
On Mantra TV
Saturday, June 12, 2004, 10:30 pm
Time Warner Cable Channel 56
RCN Cable Channel 108
---
In celebration
of Pandit Pran Nath’s extraordinary life and work, MELA Foundation
presents two memorial tributes. A
concert of the Master’s pre-recorded tapes of Evening Ragas will be
presented on Sunday, June 13, 2004 at 8:00 pm in the MELA Dream House, 275 Church Street, 3rd floor, New
York. The concert is curated by La
Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, who will present commentary on the music during
the event. Admission $16; $14 MELA
members; seniors; students with ID.
Limited seating.
Reservations recommended:
212-925-8270.
MELA is also
presenting a telecast of Pandit Pran Nath’s 1991 performances of Ragas
Pat Dipak and Darbari on public access cable television. The program will air on the Mantra TV
program on Time Warner Cable Channel 56 (RCN Cable Channel 108) on Saturday
night, June 12, at 10:30 PM .
Pandit Pran
Nath, who passed away on June 13, 1996, virtually introduced the vocal
tradition of North Indian classical music to the West in 1970. His 1971 morning performance at Town
Hall, New York City, was the first concert of morning ragas to be presented in
the U.S. Subsequently, he
introduced and elaborated to Western audiences the concept of performing ragas
at the proper time of day by scheduling entire series of concerts at special
hours. Many students and
professional musicians came to him in America to learn about the vast system of
raga and to improve their musicianship.
He performed frequently in New York City and in 1972, established his
own school under the direction of his disciples La Monte Young and Marian
Zazeela, the Kirana Center for Indian Classical Music, now a project of MELA
Foundation. In Fall 1993, Pran
Nath inaugurated the MELA Foundation Dream House with three Raga Cycle concerts and continued to perform here
annually during his lifetime.
Pran Nath's
majestic expositions of the slow alap sections of ragas combined with his emphasis on perfect intonation and the
clear evocation of mood had a profound impact on Western contemporary composers
and performers. In addition to
Young and Zazeela, minimalist music composer Terry Riley became one of his
first American disciples.
Fourth-world trumpeter Jon Hassell, jazz all-stars Don Cherry and Lee
Konitz, composers Jon Gibson, Yoshimasa Wada, Rhys Chatham, Michael Harrison
and Allaudin Mathieu, Sufi Pir Shabda Kahn, mathematician and composer Christer
Hennix, concept artist and violinist Henry Flynt, dancer Simone Forti, and many
others took the opportunity to study with the master.
The performances
of Ragas Pat Dipak and
Darbari to be aired on
Mantra TV were part of A Concert of Evening Ragas presented by MELA Foundation
at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on October 18, 1991. Pandit Pran Nath was accompanied by La
Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and Terry Riley, voices and tamburas, Michael
Harrison, tambura, and Krishna Bhatt, tabla. The MELA Archive video of this rare gathering of the master
Indian vocalist with some of his closest disciples gives us another glimpse
into his last years performing in one of New York's most majestic spaces.
For further
information email mail@melafoundation.org or call
212-925-8270
MELA's programs are made
possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State
Agency and generous contributions from individuals and MELA Members.