Pathbreaker

The western media has described him as the ‘Mozart’ of Indian classical music. For this sitarist, such laurels are not new as he carries the torch of a lineage of 400 years of musicians- right from the royal court of the Moghul emperor Shah Jehan.

His great great grandfather Ustad Sahebdad Khan is credited with the invention of the Surbahar (bass sitar)-an instrument which Irshad Khan plays with equal élan.

He is known not only for his mastery over these two instruments but also for his presentation of different genres of Indian classical music and his unique power of the intricate ‘gayaki-ang’ (vocal).

I feel what I sing is resonated with a lot of feeling through the notes of this instrument

Khan’s first public performance was at the young age of seven. He played at the well-known Harivallabh festival at Jalandhar at the age of nine and his first international performance was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, when he was only 13.

Since stalwarts like Yehudi Menuhin, George Harrison (of the Beatles fame) were going to attend the performance, Khan practised for 8-12 hours a day and won worldwide recognition as a child prodigy. “My father (Ustad Imrat Khan) introduced me to the West. I was very excited and very charged,” recalls the instrumentalist and adds,  There has been no looking back after that. He has given over 2000 performances in 30 countries.

Since his ancestors settled in Kolkata, he has studied there. “Our house in Kolkata has had many notable visitors like Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan as also great poets like Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. With such legends coming to our place, our house was quite rightly called the temple of music. Since I have grown up in this kind of environment, music is in my blood.

” His exposure to classical vocal singing came from his paternal grandmother whose ancestors were well-known vocalists. “My grandmother was an encyclopaedia of classical music. She never sang in public but imparted the best repertoire to us children and I was a lucky pet,” explains Khan about his knowledge of vocal music.

Stating that when he verbalised some brandishes (compositions) while playing the sitar, there were demands from the audience that he should sing. Hence, in his latest album comprising of ragas and light classical music, he has combined both his sitar strings and vocal cords to render a unique composition. “No one has experimented with singing while playing the sitar. I bond well with both,” says Khan.

This is for the first time that album of this kind has been brought out. He states that his idea is to draw the present generation to at least identify with words and the sounds of the strings that emanate in his compositions. For most youngsters, classical music seems to be heavy and they turn away from it.

The compositions in ‘Talking Hearts—” truly strike a chord with the listeners as they can hum along. “For me playing the sitar and singing is like the ashiq-mashuqa relationship,” explains the Ustad, “I feel what I sing is resonated with a lot of feeling through the notes of this instrument!”

His main aim is to take the sitar to the common man. This experiment would bring them to appreciate authentic classical music.

“In order to do this, first I have to give them something light which they can understand,” he adds.Khan’s current stay in India is also marked with several performances at Varanasi and other places. With his own academy of classical music in North America, he is also planning to set up a similar academy in Mumbai.