Reconnecting with the sitar
Sitar player Shalu Garg
Photo:
Supplied
Shalu Garg is a member of the growing number of Indian classical musicians who call Aotearoa home.
Garg brought herself and her sitar into RNZ's Auckland studios where she chatted with Concert host Bryan Crump in between playing two excerpts in Raag Khamaj.
She began with a small Alaap "to reflect the soul of the Raag", followed by a Dhun - a semi-classical piece. She explained to Crump that a Raag is a little like a musical scale.
As a child growing up in New Delhi, Shalu Garg had many talents, including music.
She began learning the sitar at the age of eight, but at the same time, she was also excelling in drama and sport - competing at a national level in athletics.
Then her school grades began to suffer. Garg's parents persuaded her to put aside extra-curricular activities to focus on her studies.
Academically, it paid off. She graduated from university with a degree in accounting.
But when she and her husband settled in New Zealand and she went to a concert of Indian music, she began to feel the pull of the sitar again.
However, Garg doesn't do things by halves. If she was going to relearn the sitar she was going to do it properly, which meant finding a teacher back in India.
Thanks to Skype and air travel, she was able to do that.
Now Garg is a regular performer at Indian classical concerts, often in tandem with leading Auckland tabla player Manjit Singh, founder of the city's
Rhythm School of Indian Music
, who also teaches Indian music at Auckland University.
Recent performances have also seen Garg, Singh and other Indian musicians make music with some of New Zealand's top jazz artists, including sax player Nathan Haines.
Crump suggested maybe the next generation of budding sitarists living in New Zealand won't have to find a teacher in India, they'll be able to learn from her instead.
And to end the conversation, Garg played another composition in Raag Khamaj, a faster-paced finishing piece called a Jhala.
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