Britons court melody of ragas

Indian classical music has grown in popularity over the years in the UK, with the number of teachers and students — British or of Indian origin — reaching a new high today, reflecting not only continuity with tradition but also enduring change

Some time ago, Adib Ahmad, a visitor from Lucknow, went to the Nehru Centre in Mayfair to see an exhibition of paintings. As he moved around the hall on the ground floor, soothing strains of the sitar played softly in the background, adding a new dimension to experiencing art. Curious about the mellifluous exposition of what seemed like Raga Puriya Kalyan, he inquired about the album, but was told the music was coming from upstairs, where a live performance was on. He hastened upstairs, entered the darkened hall and took a seat in one of the back rows, and enjoyed the detailed unfolding of the evening raga. As the artiste concluded with a delightful Ragamalika (garland of ragas) to much applause, Ahmad was pleasantly surprised to see that the sitar player was not one from the Indian sub-continent, but British: Clem Alford, also known as the ‘Scottish Pandit’, and a guru to generations of musicians.

Alford, 76, is symbolic of the interest and growth of Indian classical music over the years in Britain. He has performed and collaborated with leading musicians in India and in the West, and is among British musicians whose virtuosity is acknowledged in the world of Indian classical music. Accompanied on the tanpura by his student Ben Hazleton and on the tabla by Udit Pankhania, he said after the event: “Indian classical music is safe in the hands of the young generation in India. It is growing here too.” He continues to teach at various institutions in London and elsewhere; several of his students have become teachers, including Jonathan Mayer (sitar), who has performed widely and composed in a variety of genres. Mick Taylor, another sitar exponent and a disciple of Imdad Hussain and Imrat Khan, received rave reviews in India and elsewhere for his gayaki (vocal) style; until he passed away in 2018 aged 69, he was among teachers of Indian classical music increasingly busy with new students. Such teachers have white Britons as students as well as those with origins in the Indian sub-continent, reflecting the cross-cultural permeability of art forms explored by theorists such as Raymond Williams, Homi K Bhabha and Stuart Hall.

Says Swati Natekar, prominent vocalist who has performed and collaborated with several mainstream British and other artistes since moving to London in 1990: “My students have included British as well as French, Portuguese, Somalian, Japanese and Bosnian lovers of our classical music. It is not easy to teach them, can be a challenge since it involves unlearning a lot. Our voice techniques are different. Comfort in two or three saptaks (series of seven notes) is necessary. Also, it can be a challenge for them to learn the harkat (playful embellishment in a melody), which is so much part of our classical music. But I love challenges in teaching; many of my students have gone on to become performers.”

She recalls being anxious about how British audiences would respond during early concerts, but has since been pleasantly surprised to receive acclaim and work as the popularity of Indian classical music grew.

An education in Indian classical music

At the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in London, executive director NM Nandakumara says classical music has been taught since 1973; around 15 per cent of its 800-plus students are white British. Until recently, the centre ran music degree courses with Trinity College London, while several legends, including Ravi Shankar, Jasraj, Hari Prasad Chaurasia and M Balamuralikrishna, conducted master-classes over the years. As Ravi Shankar said during one of his visits to the centre, “If there is one place in the UK where Indian art and culture is taught and practised in the true traditional sense, it is, without doubt, the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.”

Indian classical music has also been included in British schools: a new Model Music Curriculum released this year includes Kishori Amonkar’s classic Sahela Re, among numbers of several leading artistes as symbolic of different genres.

Awareness and interest in Indian classical music is driven by several factors, including regular concerts and festivals in London and across the UK, featuring the most known performers from the sub-continent. It is not uncommon that tickets to such events are snapped up soon after they go on sale. Every major opera and concert hall has hosted Indian classical music-themed festivals and events, including the Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Centre, and cultural centres in towns such as Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Leicester, Liverpool and Manchester. There are Britons attracted to the genre during visits to India, and continue their new-found passion on return by enrolling with institutions and teachers in Britain.

Besides individual teachers, institutions such as the Birmingham Conservatoire, Leeds Conservatoire and Trinity College London have been associated with teaching Indian classical music, inspiring many students to take it up as a career. Some students built upon their family links with India, while others discovered the genre while enrolling on short courses at university and stayed with it.

Bristol-based Pete Yelding, 31, noted cellist, sitarist and vocalist, recalls being enchanted when he enrolled on a 6-week course on Indian classical music by Clem Alford while he was studying at the Birmingham Conservatoire; he is now a student of Ustad Irfan Muhammad Khan (sarod). He says: “I grew up among musicians and was a cellist first, but realised that much of mainstream music is Eurocentric. I focus on creating melody and Clem Alford’s course unlocked for me so much potential in the ragas. That has since been the thing that makes me get up in the morning; I now come at all my music from the perspective of the ragas. After university, I immersed myself in the genre, learned from Jonathan Mayer, and for some time performed in restaurants, weddings and other occasions. Definitely Indian classical music is growing in popularity in the UK. In my generation, among white British or Italian musicians, there are many quite serious about using the vast knowledge in ragas to create music. The only caveat I would add is that there is a limited range of styles taught in the UK, a smaller range of ways of playing. It would be nice to see a wider range taught here, as I saw during my visit to Kolkata.”

A growing critical mass of connoisseurs, supporters and students sustains a busy calendar of performances and courses organised by groups focused on Indian arts and music, such as Sama Arts, Darbar, Milapfest, ShruthiUK, Asian Music Circuit, South Asian Arts-UK and the Pandit Ram Sahai Sangeet Vidyalaya. Besides, music appreciation courses and performances are held at various cultural centres and universities. In 2015, the Solihull-based ShruthiUK launched the first-of-its-kind Carnatic Choir Group with the aim of creating and exploring choral singing in the South Indian classical music genre.

For Leeds-based saxophonist and composer Jesse Bannister, 49, growing up in a family with Indian influences and meditation/spiritual practices, taking to classical music came naturally. He has been using knowledge from the ragas to create a body of compositions for sound-based healing. For centuries, he says, the resonance of shruti has been known to heal and spark meditative states, returning human cells to their natural frequency and restoring harmony. Inspired by the concept, he writes and performs a series of introspective piano pieces that shift through diverse colours and textures, from raga to the sound worlds of French composer Erik Satie and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, to bring about a tuning of mind and body.