A MYRIAD WORLD OF
Renowned Classical-World musician and composer
Dr. Prakash Sontakke gives Sriram Ravishankar a peak into his world of swaras, his journey as a Hindustani Classical musician into becoming one of the most well known names in the International circuit as an Indian cross-over artist, and much more..
Swaras!
A MYRIAD WORLD OF
Renowned Classical-World musician and composer
Sriram Ravishankar
Dr. Prakash Sontakke gives Sriram Ravishankar a peak into his world of swaras, his journey as a Hindustani Classical musician into becoming one of the most well known names in the International circuit as an Indian cross-over artist, and much more..
Tell us more about your beginnings as a musician
Coming from a family of musicians, my mother Dr Mani Sontakke and father Dr Mani Sontakke were incredible educators with a very open mind deep rooted in tradition. My first discovery of Michael Jacksons“ Thriller” was the discovery of the fact that if you can read the musical notes then the entire music of the world is the same. It so happened that when my Dad heard me sneaking in the cassette and listening to the first Bass riff of the song, he walked into the room and asked me for the Swara pattern of that Bass Riff and later on when I did that he said“ Now isn’ t this song in Raag Bheempalasi?” This one statement opened up the doors of the most beautiful world of swaras and how there is swara in everything for me.
Your influences and what drove you towards World music
I was always a little notorious as a child especially musical notoriousness. The story goes like this that the music teacher at my convent school had the typical“ Riyaz karo beta dus pandora seal”( practice for ten to fifteen years) approach and all this Gyaan for only playing notations as basic as SRG RGM. I tried explaining to him that I would prefer playing a movie song like“ Yamma Yamma ye Khoobsoorat Sama” which upset him deeply and he failed my only chance to go and play for the schools’ participation in some local competition. I was not the kind to easily give up so I quietly sneaked into the venue and just before his so called“ bright” disciple went to perform I slowly went and detuned the Instrument the disciple obviously had no clue of the instrument being detuned and he gave a blissful performance with a totally detuned instrument. The interesting part was now when the Judge Legend Pt Kishan Maharaj asked the student to tune the instrument and when he realised that the bright one had no clue he requested someone to help him. That someone was me and I cut a deal saying I should be allowed to play for at least 2 minutes. He agreed and after the bright one, I went and played Yamma Yamma. Pt Kishen Maharaj was amused and said,“ When you can tune so well why aren ' t you playing classical too. And that was the opportunity and I played classical too. The crowds had enjoyed YAMMA YAMMA already and now they were very much more impressed with the display of Classical.“ Music of any kind is great as long as it is performed and executed well” were his words which ring in my ears even now.
My greatest influences are Pink Floyd, Omkarnath Thakur, Kumar Gandharva, Beegees, Karft Werk, Vallabham Kalyansundaram Bundu, Ali Khan Saheb, Gopal Shankar Mishra, MS Gopalakrishnan, Allarakhaji, Zareen Daruwala, Balram Pathak, Nikhil Banerjee, Ravishankar, and Depeche Mode.
What was appealing to me was, the fact that the World of Swaras could connect anything to anything as long as it was the Raga. As more maturity set in, the Jazz of Chick Korea and Keith Jarret along with Jon Garabarek and Edberg Gismonti finally landing at Hermeto Pascoal( Introduced by Iain Ballamy) kind of opened up an even bigger door of improvisations in Indian Classical with some inspirations of great Jazz( I strictly say inspired by because I have learnt only Hindustani Classical) to me. The exposure and opportunity to perform with“ FOOD”- British Norwegian Duo was an experience which opened up many more doors for me.
Tell us more about how you broke into the international circuit as an Indian classical musician
I was always known as the“ Yes!” man and I really don’ t know if that is a right thing. Talking about opportunity the chart is such that opportunity gives experience; experience helps in honing the skill and that helps in creating more opportunities which creates more experiences. The chart looks organic but after first stage itself musicians are happy with the money coming in and the next stage starts looking like a waste of time and a major risk taking which could be avoidable. Anyway apart from some small tours of Indian Classical dance segments where you are hauled up in some NRIs basement, cooking your own food and waiting to finish the weekend’ s concerts so you can go shop for some T-shirts and perfumes, I looked away and preferred to do something else. One such opportunity was with Arya. Later on, Lehera was born and that was a major break in the Canadian circuit. I think I have seen more of British Columbia then probably most of the Canadians.( chuckles)
The Score Magazine
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