Nishat Khan
| Nishat Khan | |
|---|---|
 Khan performs in Los Angeles, California, in October 2008 | |
| Background information | |
| Born |
1960s Kolkata, West Bengal, India |
| Instruments | sitar |
| Associated acts | Imrat Khan |
| Website | Nishat Khan |
Ustad Nishat Khan is one of India’s finest musicians and a virtuoso sitar player, transcending musical barriers with his provocative expression and spellbinding technical mastery. He is also referred as the fastest sitar playing maestro in the world. Nishat stands at the threshold of the future of sitar and Indian music with his uniquely invigorating and contemporary approach. He is the son and disciple of Ustad Imrat Khan,[1] the nephew of the late Ustad Vilayat Khan[2][3] and a member of one of the oldest and most prestigious musical families and schools in India – the Imdadkani Ganara of Etawah.[4] His trademark sitar playing is lyrical in quality, as is evident in all of his music. Nishat has mastered not only the North Indian classical idiom, but has also worked with music as diverse as Gregorian chant, Western classical music, jazz and flamenco. He has collaborated with some of the world's leading performers and composers such as Philip Glass,[5] John McLaughlin,[6] Paco Peña[7] and Evelyn Glennie.[8]
Early life
Nishat Khan is a world renown Sitar player, born on October 25, 1965, in Kolkata, India. He hails from one of the most famous music families in the North Indian classical tradition that extends back for seven generations. Not only is he the son of Ustad Imrat Khan but also the nephew of Ustad Vilayat Khan.
A strong influence growing up was his grandmother, Begum Inayat Khan Sahib. She was an incredibly strong lady with vast musical knowledge, a very strict disciplinarian but also very loving. She not only taught him a lot about music but also had a big part to play in his riyaaz (practice schedule). He started playing the sitar at the age of 3 when he was barely sitting. Riyaaz was rigorous, disciplined and enjoyable, and he rehearsed whenever he felt like playing the sitar, which was all the time. He was always around music and there was no conversation without it, all his entertainment was centred on music. His father Ustad Imrat Khan was known for his rigorous riyaaz. He has even skipped school to play. He also attended a lot of concerts, and when he returned home, an analysis of what he heard and taalim (training) would start; sometimes all through the night. He played his first concert when he was 7 years old and has been doing this for the last 41 years.
Personal life and collaborations
His first concert abroad was in 1977 in London, when he performed with his father, Ustad Imrat Khan, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall[9] with the eminent musicians of India sitting together in the front row, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akhbar Khan, Ustad Allah Rakha Khan, and Ustad Salamat Ali Khan.
He has collaborated with John McLaughlin, Philip Glass, Paco Pena, Evelyn Glennie, and Django Bates.
Ustad Nishat Khan performed live with John McLaughlin in Italy in 1986 and featured on his album The Promise.[10] Performed at a comparative music concert with Philip Glass and collaborated with him on his opera of Satyagraha in which he played Tilak Kamod in South Germany in 1993. Paco Pena and Khan have had several tours in the UK and Europe as part of his group Spirit & Passion. With Evelyn Glennie, he performed at two concerts – one with BBC Scottish Symphony, a special piece Khan composed called Dancing with Seagulls. This was also performed in London at Wigmore Hall. Khan has also composed and recorded sitar and vocals on the rock song Love is the Answer by Weezer in 2009.
Tours and performances
Ustad Nishat Khan has performed at major venues internationally, including Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center in New York and the Royal Albert Hall in London. In 2004, he was invited to perform alongside Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck, John McLaughlin and others at the Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas. In 2007, he toured across India with violinist Vanessa Mae and performed at the Seagrams 100 Pipers Pure Music Show in August. In 2008, he toured Europe with his pioneering project, Spirit & Passion, featuring Flamenco guitar great Paco Pena, and later that year performed a solo concert at the BBC Proms. In 2009, he performed at Bovard Auditorium, Los Angeles.[11] In October 2010, Ustad Nishat Khan worked on the concept of Mélange, a fusion-jazz show that features an eclectic mix of musicians from all around the world and performed at Tata Theatre, NCPA.
The world premiere of Nishat Khan’s Sitar Concerto no. 1 ‘The Gate of the Moon’ featured as part of the BBC Proms programme at the Royal Albert Hall on August 12, 2013. The occasion marked Khan’s third appearance as a soloist at the Proms but was the first time that one of his own compositions has featured. The work integrates a sitar concerto with Western orchestration to tell the love story between the mystical ‘unknown traveller’ (sitar) and the princess. David Atherton conducted the BBC National Orchestra of Wales[12] in the performance of ‘The Gate of the Moon’, which was broadcast live on both BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Asian network.
Later that year in November, Nishat Khan held the audience in a spell as he indulged dance guru Pt Birju Maharaj in a duet or juggalbandi on stage at the opening of the 44th International Film Festival of India in Goa.
In 2015, he has performed at Theatre de la Ville, Paris, Kennedy Centre in Washington DC and at a concert at the Budapest Festival 2015. He has also collaborated with artist-sculptor Anish Kapoor in London 2015. In 2016, he visited Tehran with the Prime Minister's delegation and performed a solo concert at the Vahdat Hall. He also performed at the Barbican Hall, London the same year. On 8 October 2017 he performed at the Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Music Centre in Manhattan. He also opened the Sixth Edition of the Delhi Classical Music Festival in October, 2017.
Versatility in Music
The son and disciple of Ustad Imrat Khan, Nishat stands at the threshold of the future of sitar and Indian music with his uniquely invigorating, contemporary approach. He draws on his own musical heritage as well as engages other genres as diverse as Western classical music, jazz, Flamenco and Gregorian chant. He has worked with other major performers and composers such as John McLaughlin, Philip Glass, Paco Peña, Evelyn Glennie.
Films
In 2011, he composed his first Bollywood film score, Yeh Saali Zindagi, for the director Sudhir Mishra and in 2013, the Indian Government commissioned him to write a 70-minute orchestral score for the Indian silent film, A Throw of Dice.
The work was commissioned especially for performance at the Centenary Film Festival, which celebrates 100 years of Indian cinema.
Besides these he has composed music for Heat and Dust (1983) and Little Buddha (1993).
Press appearances and interviews
‘Nishat Khan’s new Sitar Concerto offered an altogether more meditative engagement with India. This sitar legend (just the latest in a dynasty of great musicians in his family) is a familiar face at the Proms, but he has never before appeared as both composer and soloist. The concerto itself follows in the footsteps of Ravi Shankar’s concerto, marrying the textures and techniques of Indian classical music with the instrumentation and symphonic structure of western music.’—The Arts Desk (Alexandra Coghlan), August 13, 2013
‘Nishat Khan himself and the orchestra gave an exemplary account of the concerto. The charismatic presence of Khan on his podium dominated the whole performance and his interactions with the orchestra were fascinating, genuinely touching and exciting by turns.’—Bachtrack (Chris Garlick), August 14, 2013
‘Khan’s playing emerged from and receded into the textures like the mysterious traveller, the sitar was meant to represent. Although his performance cohered exactly with the mood and tempo of the orchestra, it also embodied a sense of autonomy from external constraints, not least by the resonance of its sympathetic strings outlasting all other tones, and by the increasingly virtuosic strumming towards the end, compounding the impression of a source of dynamic energy whose origins are unfathomable.’—Classicalsource.com (Curtis Rogers), August, 2013
‘The main event of the evening was the world premiere of Nishat Khan’s The Gate of the Moon. Like Ravi Shankar before him, this Calcutta-born sitar player has been impelled to create a sitar concerto with Western orchestration: with amplification, the two elements can be brought to a sort of parity. Nishat Khan was invited to puff his piece beforehand and did so fulsomely, describing his instrument as ‘the unknown traveler introducing a mystical and positive energy’.—The Independent (Michael Church), August 13, 2013
Compositions and albums
| CD Title | Ragas | Record label | CD Ref | Year |
| Great Heritage Great Tradition | Malkauns
Jaijaivanti |
His Master’s Voice | EASD 1423 | 1984 |
| Meeting of Angels | Mixed | Amiata | ARNR 1096 | 1996 |
| Heart of Fire | Desh
Pilu Maand |
Navras | NRCD0209 | |
| Indian Classical Masters | Bhimplasi
Tilak Kamod |
Nimbus | NI 5233 | 1990 |
| Sentimental Sitar | Chandini Kalyan
Jogkauns Kalavati Mishra bhairavi |
T-Series | ||
| Sitar | ||||
| Sitar | Pilu
Jhinjoti Bihari |
Saregama | ||
| Raga Khan | Gawoti
Jogia |
Amiata | ARNR 1997 | 1998 |
| Mian Ki Malhar | Mian Ki Malhar
Dhanasri |
Indian Archive | IAM CD 1024 | 1996 |
| String Craft | Mixed | Victor Japan | Amazon ref: B00005GWAT[13] | |
| Nishat Khan and Zakir Hussain | Yaman
Suha Sugrai Bhairavi |
His Master’s Voice | ECSD 3134 | 1985 |
| Nishat Khan Sitar | Behag
Bhatiyar |
EMI | Amazon ref: B005389HJO | |
| Indian Classical Masters | Bhimplasi
Tilak Kamod |
Nimbus | Amazon ref: B00000E08X | 1990 |
| Secret World | Bhairavi | Amiata | ARNR 2697 | 1997 |
| Jhinjoti | Jhinjoti | His Master’s Voice | EASD 1472 | 1990 |
Bibliography
The Guardian
(Nishat Khan review – sitar maestro turns rock guitarist)
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/26/nishat-khan-review-sitar-barbican-london
The Telegraph
(Nishat Khan: 'Indian music has been spoiled by mediocre people’)
Faber Music
http://www.fabermusic.com/composers/nishat-khan/biography
World Music Institute
http://www.worldmusicinstitute.org/event/bcb71b8929cb830378bd4766b80320ea
The Asian Age
Heart to heart with Ustad Nishat Khan
http://www.asianage.com/entertainment/music/050617/heart-to-heart-with-ustad-nishat-khan.html
Asian Culture Vulture
Darbar Festival 2017: Nishat Khan and the soul of Khayal – Class acts, joyous and magical
The Times of India
https://photogallery.indiatimes.com/events/bangalore/ustad-nishat-khan/articleshow/2328985.cms
http://www.nishatkhan.com/A%20Throw%20of%20Dice%20-%20The%20Times%20of%20India%20review.pdf
http://www.nishatkhan.com/press1.jpg
http://dailytrojan.com/2009/10/12/sitar-master-hypnotizes-with-eastern-flavor/
BBC Music
https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/8a1397e9-6d44-47fd-aa08-fd1a25b3879e
See also
See also
References
- ↑ 1928-2004., Khan, Vilayat, (1969), The guru : original sound track, RCA Victor, OCLC 3036390, retrieved 2018-08-28
- ↑ 1928-2004., Khan, Vilayat, (1969), The guru : original sound track, RCA Victor, OCLC 3036390, retrieved 2018-08-28
- ↑ 1928-2004., Khan, Vilayat, (1969), The guru : original sound track, RCA Victor, OCLC 3036390, retrieved 2018-08-28
- ↑ "ETAWAH". Encyclopédie de l’Islam. Retrieved 2018-08-28.
- ↑ performer., Glass, Philip, composer, (2012), The essential Philip Glass., Sony Classical, ISBN 9786314589080, OCLC 843137367, retrieved 2018-08-28
- ↑ John., McLaughlin, (2008), John McLaughlin., Columbia, OCLC 915156452, retrieved 2018-08-28
- ↑ Composer., Pena, Paco, Composer. Losada, Tito, Composer. Losada, Diego, Composer. Losada, Vaky, Composer. Losada, Jose, Composer. Sanlucar, Esteban de, SPAIN Paco Pena: Arte y Pasion., Naxos Digital Services US Inc, OCLC 884881289, retrieved 2018-08-28
- ↑ Holland, James (2001), "Glennie, Evelyn", Oxford Music Online, Oxford University Press, retrieved 2018-08-28
- ↑ "Queen Elizabeth Hall", Oxford Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001, retrieved 2018-08-28
- ↑ "The Promise". The Promise. doi:10.5040/9780571292745.00000004.
- ↑ SUTHERLAND, HENRY A. (September 1965). "Requiem for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Auditorium". Southern California Quarterly. 47 (3): 303–331. doi:10.2307/41169943. ISSN 0038-3929.
- ↑ "Søndergård, Thomas, (born 4 Oct. 1969), Principal Conductor, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, since 2012", Who's Who, Oxford University Press, 2013-12-01, retrieved 2018-08-28
- ↑ "References", Diagnostic Reference Index of Clinical Neurology, Elsevier, pp. Ref–1a-Ref-70, 1986, ISBN 9780409900163, retrieved 2018-08-28
External links
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nishat Khan. |
- "Nishat Khan". Official Website.
- Nishat Khan's page at his publisher, Faber Music Ltd
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