MELA Foundation Dream House
275 Church Street, 3rd Floor, Between Franklin &
White Streets in Tribeca
Saturday, March 27, 2004, 9 pm
Admission $24. MELA Members, Seniors, Student ID,
$18.
Limited seating. Advance reservations recommended.
A Concert of Evening Ragas in the contemporary Kirana
Style of North Indian Classical Music will be performed by La
Monte Young and Marian Zazeela with their Just Alap
raga ensemble, in a memorial tribute honoring Pandit Pran Nath’s
Guru, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan Sahib, the greatest master of the
Kirana gharana during his lifetime on Saturday,
March 27, at 9 pm in the MELA Foundation Dream House
light environment, 275 Church Street, 3rd Floor. PLEASE
NOTE: The Dream House
Sound and Light Environment will be closed on Saturday, March 27
in preparation for the scheduled concert.
La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela will be accompanied by
Jung Hee Choi, voice, Da’ud Constant, voice, Rose Okada,
sarangi, Brad Catler, tabla, and The Tamburas of Pandit Pran
Nath from the Just Dreams CD. The Just Alap
ensemble will present the avant-premiere of a new composition by
La Monte Young, “Raga Sundara,” a vilampit khayal
set in Raga Yaman Kalyan, composed under a
commission grant from the NYSCA Individual Artists Program.
Pandit Pran Nath has
said, "Alap is the essence of Raga. When the
drut [faster tempo] begins, the Raga is
finished." With the Just Alap ensemble, La
Monte Young applies his own compositional approach to
traditional raga performance, form and technique: a pranam
(bow) of gratitude in reciprocation for the influence on his
music, since the mid-fifties, of the unique, slow, unmetered
timeless alap, and for one of the most ancient and evolved vocal
traditions extant today. Featuring extended alap sections
and sustained vocal drones in just intonation over tamburas,
Young and Zazeela premiered this ensemble on August 22, 2002 in
a memorial tribute to Ustad Hafizullah Khan, the late Khalifa of
the Kirana Gharana and son of Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan Sahib.
Ustad
Abdul Wahid Khan’s revival of the khayal at the turn of
the century stands, in itself, as a virtually unparalleled
contribution in the recent history of Indian classical music.
Although a youthful prodigy of the Kolhapur court,
remaining unchallenged after his public debut there at the age
of 18, he had not the inclination to spend time singing in the
courts. Instead, he
lived a devout, reclusive life, singing in the presence of holy
men and at the tombs of Sufi saints, and only occasionally sang
in public. His
command of the art was of such stature that no other musician
ever performed in his presence.
Requiring rigorous discipline and fierce devotion, he
took very few disciples; among them Pran Nath became the most
important through his ceaseless practice, natural talent, and
extraordinary ability to serve his teacher.
La
Monte Young and Marian Zazeela helped bring Pandit Pran Nath to
the U.S. and became his first Western disciples, studying with
him for twenty-six years in the traditional gurukula
manner of living with the guru. Young and Zazeela have
taught the Kirana style and performed with Pandit Pran Nath
since 1970 in hundreds of concerts in India, Iran, Europe and
the United States. In June 2002, Young was conferred the
title of Khan Sahib by Khalifa Hafizullah Khan
Sahib.
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 New
York’s Town Hall 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. Pran Nath
presented annual Raga Cycle concert series in New York
and established his own school under the direction of
La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, the Kirana Center for
Indian Classical Music, now a project of MELA Foundation.
In Fall 1993 he inaugurated the MELA Foundation Dream House
with three Raga Cycle concerts and continued to perform
here throughout 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 advantage of the opportunity to study with the
master.
Admission is $24 / $18 MELA members; seniors; students with
ID. Limited seating. Advance reservations
recommended. For further information email mail@melafoundation.org
or visit www.melafoundation.org
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.