GRAMMY AWARD WINNING INDIAN SLIDE GUITARIST FOR SA TOUR

Grammy Award winning Indian slide guitarist for South Africa tour

South African audiences will be treated to an evening of Indian Classical and Folk Music when the Grammy Award winner Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt takes to the stage in a two concert tour titled Ragas of the Desert in June. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt has taken his version of the slide guitar, also called the Mohan Veena, to audiences across the globe. This will be his first tour to South Africa. He is accompanied on the tour by the Manganiyars, a group of folk musicians from the desert in Rajasthan.

Vishwa Mohan Bhatt’s learnt Indian Classical Music from, and is one of the first disciples of, the legendary sitar virtuoso Pandit Ravi Shankar, who passed away in December last year. He traces his origin back to Miyan Tansen, a court musician of the 16^thcentury Mughal emperor Akbar, and Tansen’s guru, the mystic, Swami Haridas.

Vishwa Mohan Bhatt has attracted international acclaim and attention for his successful Indianisation of the Hawaiian guitar with his perfect assimilation of sitar, sarod and veena (traditional Indian instruments) techniques, by giving it an evolutionary design and shape. He added 14 more strings to increase its potential and then was born the instrument the Mohan Veena which is now recognised as a true Indian Classical instrument. The extra strings allow for bluesy and Hawaiian sounds and forces the player to go beyond the boundaries of traditional playing, which is fascinating in itself. With blinding speed and faultless legato, Bhatt is undoubtedly one of the most expressive, versatile and greatest slide guitar players in the world.

Outstanding features of Bhatt’s style are his natural ability to play the ‘Tantrakari Ang’ (instrumental style) and incorporate the ‘Gayaki Ang’ (vocal style) on Mohan Veena which is a great advantage of this instrument.

Like his guru Pandit Ravi Shankar, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt is also a composer and innovator. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt won the coveted Grammy Award in 1994 in the category Best World Music Album for his album “A Meeting by the River” with Ry Cooder. This further enhanced his status from just a performer to a soulful composer.He has also collaborated with artistes like Taj Mahal, Béla Fleck, Jerry Douglas, and performed in the 2004 Crossroads Guitar Festival, organised by Eric Clapton.

The Manganiyars, an exclusive community of musicians from Rajasthan in Western India, have perhaps the richest legacy of folk music behind them. With a characteristic vocal technique, full throated singing and an eclectic blend of rare folk instruments, their music is nothing short of magic. Among them, Anwar Khan and Firoze Khan along with their troupe have brought Rajasthani folk music out of its closeted existence into mainstream acceptance. Their performances with the tabla maestro UstadZakir Hussain’s Masters of Percussion tour have brought them international acclaim.The Manganiyars have popularly toured Europe and the rest of the world as the “Divana Ensemble”, performing at Musica Populi in Florence, Garnier Opera House in Paris, and La Villet.They also performed in the “From Sitar to the Guitar” evening created by Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin, in Brussels and performed for a week at Sydney Opera House. Their recent performances with Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt at Womex, FMM Sines Music Festival in Portugal, and Ethno Port Poznan Festival have been highly acclaimed.They now travel all over the world, taking their beautiful folk music to people and giving them a glimpse of the vibrant land of Rajasthan.

 Ragas of the Desert is a meeting of the masters inspired by the vast expanses of the Thar desert of Rajasthan, India. The spiralling sounds of the mohan veena intertwine with the vocal harmonies of the Manganiyars, the melodies of the kamancheh, and the ecstatic rhythms of the tabla, dholak, and khadtal, like a long-distance message passing through the vast desert.

 Ragas of the Desert is produced by Inner Circle Entertainment, the premier producer of Indian Classical music concerts in South Africa.

 A workshop and master class schedule to be conducted by Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt will be announced soon.

Concert Dates:

Saturday 8 June; 7.30pm; at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town;

Tickets are available from Computicket.