The Just Alap Raga Ensemble
Pandit Pran Nath 10th
Anniversary Memorial Tribute
Concerts in the
MELA Dream House
Saturdays, June 17 and
24, 9 pm
La Monte Young,
voice
Marian Zazeela,
voice
Jung Hee Choi,
voice
Da'ud Constant, voice
Brad Catler, tabla
The Tamburas of
Pandit Pran Nath
from the Just Dreams CD
MELA Foundation
Dream House
275 Church Street, 3rd Floor, between Franklin & White Streets in Tribeca
Saturdays, June 17 and 24, 2006, 9 pm
Admission $24. MELA
Members, Seniors, Student ID, $18.
Limited seating. Advance reservations recommended.
Info and reservations: 212-219-3019; mail@melafoundation.org.
Two Concerts of Evening Ragas in the contemporary Kirana Style of North Indian Classical Music will be performed by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela with The Just Alap Raga Ensemble in a memorial tribute to Pandit Pran Nath on the 10th anniversary of his passing, Saturdays, June 17 and 24, at 9 pm in the MELA Foundation Dream House light environment, 275 Church Street, 3rd Floor. PLEASE NOTE: The Dream House will be closed on Thursdays and Saturdays, June 15, 17, 22 and 24 to prepare for the scheduled concerts.
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. 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. Following 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. 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 Khalifa of the Kirana Gharana and son of
Pandit Pran Nath’s teacher, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan Sahib. La MonteYoung and Marian Zazeela will be accompanied by Jung Hee Choi and
Da'ud Constant, voices, Charles Curtis, cello, Brad Catler, tabla, and The
Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath from the Just Dreams CD. The Just Alap
ensemble will present the continuing 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. "[Young
and Zazeela] would create works like the "Just Alap Raga Ensemble" which would
amaze musicians of the caliber of Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Jasraj or the Gundecha
brothers were they to hear it. In fact I wish they would hear it and savour
their own legacy of Indian classical music in two new ways, one, by way of the
Youngs' immense sadhna and two, by way of the fact that today the great
art of Hindustani Shastriya sangeet has actually become so much a part
of the world of music. Did not the ancients say: Vasudeva Kumutbhakam—the
world is a family? A work like "Just Raga Ensemble" actually proves it."
"He [Young] is a master
of Hindustani classical music.
La Monte
Young and Marian Zazeela, founders of the MELA Foundation Dream House in New
York are responsible for having single-handedly introduced vocal Hindustani
classical music to America. In 1970 when they brought renowned master
vocalist Pandit Pran Nath of the Kirana Gharana 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, Americans and Westeners only had a nodding
acquaintance with Indian music, that too, only instrumental music through the
performing tours of Pandit Ravi Shankar. Also some introduction to Indian
rhythm techniques through the charismatic playing of Pandit Chatur Lal, the
tabla player who always accompanied Ravi Shankar through the sixties. But the
deep, unfathomable intricacies of Khayal Gayaki and of the whole cosmos
of Alap were totally unknown to them. Indeed, as his many American
shishyas, most of them practicing musicians themselves, would say later,
even unimaginable. Young and Zazeela, who taught the Kirana style and
performed with Pandit Pran Nath since 1970 in hundreds of concerts in India,
Iran, Europe and the United States,
have continued their Guru’s work in the most exemplary manner. In June 2002,
shortly before he died, Khalifa Hafizullah Khan Sahib, Ustad Wahid Khan
Sahib’s son and a great sarangi master, conferred on Young the title of
Khan Sahib."
Admission is $24 / $18
MELA members; seniors; students with ID.
Limited seating. Advance reservations
recommended. For further information and reservations
212-219-3019, 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.
PLEASE BE
ADVISED THAT THE CONCERTS WILL BE RECORDED LIVE AND AIR CONDITIONING WILL NOT
BE USED BECAUSE OF THE NOISE IT PRODUCES ON THE RECORDINGS. AS A RESULT, THE
SPACE WILL BE VERY HUMID AND WITH LITTLE AIR CIRCULATION. THE LIGHT
ENVIRONMENT AT THIS TIME OF YEAR CAN MAKE CONCERTS IN THE DREAM HOUSE
EXTREMELY HOT. PLEASE DO NOT ATTEND IF YOU ARE OVERLY SENSITIVE TO ANY OF
THESE CONDITIONS. DRESS APPROPRIATELY FOR THE HEAT AND HUMIDITY. WE INVITE
YOU TO ATTEND THE NOVEMBER PANDIT PRAN NATH 88TH BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE CONCERTS
(DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED) FOR A MORE COMFORTABLE CONCERT ENVIRONMENT.