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. He Studied for twenty years as a disciple of Ustad
Abdul Wahid Khan, the foremost master of the Kirana gharana. Pran Nath's 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. In 1972, Pran Nath established
his own school in New York City 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. Over the years he
performed hundreds of concerts in the West, scores of them in New York
City, and in Fall 1993, he inaugurated the MELA Foundation Dream
House with three Raga Cycle concerts. He
continued to perform here annually during his remaining years and on May 12 and 17, 1996, his two concerts of
Afternoon and Evening Ragas in the Dream House were his
last public performances.
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, to be followed by Sufi Pir Shabda Kahn. 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, 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.
La Monte Young
pioneered the concept of extended time durations for over 50
years, contributed extensively to the development of just intonation
and rational number based tuning systems in his performance works and
the periodic composite sound waveform environments of the Dream
House collaborations with Marian Zazeela, and had a wide-ranging
influence on contemporary music, art and philosophy. As the first
Western disciple of renowned master vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, Young
has performed and taught the Kirana style of Indian classical music
since 1970. He accompanied Pandit Pran Nath in hundreds of
concerts throughout the world. In June 2002, the title of Khan Sahib was conferred upon Young
by Ustad Hafizullah Khan Sahib, the Khalifa of the Kirana Gharana and
son of Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan Sahib. In Summer 2002, Young and
Zazeela founded the Just Alap Raga Ensemble, which features extended alap sections and sustained vocal
drones in just intonation over tamburas and is now Young's primary
compositional and performance vehicle, presenting annual concert series
at the MELA Dream House. "For
the past quarter of a century he [Young] has been the most influential
composer in America. Maybe in the world." (Los Angeles Herald
Examiner, 1985). "As the acknowledged father of minimalism
and guru emeritus to the British art-rock school, his influence is
pervasive" (Musician magazine, 1986). "Young is now
widely recognized as the originator of the most influential classical
music style of the final third of the twentieth century." (Strickland, Minimalism:Origins,
1993). "La Monte Young: Le Son du Sicle." (L'Express
L'An 2000 Supplement, 1999).
Marian Zazeela is one of the first contemporary artists
to use light as a medium of expression. Expanding the traditional
concepts of painting and sculpture while incorporating elements of both
disciplines, she developed an innovative visual language in the medium
of light by combining colored light mixtures with sculptural forms to
create seemingly three-dimensional colored shadows in radiant
vibrational fields. Zazeela began singing in 1962 with
La Monte Young as a founding member of The Theatre of Eternal
Music, and performed as vocalist in almost every concert of the
ensemble to date, in addition to creating the visual components of Dream House, their collaborative sound and light
work. Her major work, The
Magenta Lights, has been
described in Art Forum as representing the subtle relationship
between precision and spirituality. [She] transforms material
into pure and intense color sensations, and makes a perceptual
encounter a spiritual experience." With Young in 1970, she
brought Pandit Pran Nath to the U.S. and became one of his first
Western disciples. She has since performed and taught the Kirana
style of Indian classical music and accompanied Pandit Pran Nath in
hundreds of concerts throughout the world. Zazeela created light
environments for Pandit Pran Nath's performances of Morning, Afternoon,
Sunset, and Evening Ragas and her distinctive calligraphic style
appears on many of Pran Nath's concert posters and recordings. Zazeela
continues to perform with Young in their Just Alap Raga Ensemble.