David Dalle
Thursday August 12th, 2021 with David Dalle
The Disciple's Guru: Kishori Amonkar in concert; brass music from the Balkans and India, Ukrainian-Newfoundland music.

Several weeks ago I watched the film "The Disciple", a drama about a young man's lifelong pursuit to become a classical Hindustani singer. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11423784/ - streaming on Netflix - watch it!) A wonderful film about music, it stars two classical singers. There is also a third character in the film who looms over the story, yet is never seen and only heard. She is the late guru of the elder singer in the film. While researching the singers in the film, Aditya Modak, the young aspiring singer and Arun Dravid as his guru, I found that Arun Dravid's guru was the late singer Kishori Amonkar. It is clear that the late guru in the film is a fictional character based on Dravid's actual guru, Kishori Amonkar and her guru and mother, Mogubai Kurdikar also known as "Mai", which is the name of the late guru character in the film. Kishori Amonkar was an ascetic for whom music was a form of devotion. She developed her own individual style which, though based on the Jaipur Gharana of her mother, took on aspects of many other Gharanas. For this she was often criticized in her younger years. "I do not restrict myself to a Gharana because in my opinion music is universal. If I confine myself to a restricted area, then I would never be able to see the entire horizon." "Music is more than notations, or compositions, or styles. It is an ocean of philosophy, a mountain of knowledge, an eternal teacher whose student I will always remain." - Kishori Amonkar I found an out-of-print live recording of Kishori Amonkar performing in London in 2000. It took my breath away, magnificent! We will hear an hour-long performance of Raga Jeevanpuri.