Lakshay and Aayush Mohan Gupta, who performed on Gandhi Jayanthi at the Chowdiah Memorial Hall were the first Indian classical music siblings to perform at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles at the opening of the exhibition, Ravi Shankar: A life in music that featured their collaboration with American cellist Barry Philips.
“Ravi Shankar heard us in 2012 and decided to launch us for our debut USA tour under his foundation,” Lakshay said.
The brothers, who were selected by All India Radio to perform for the UN International Broadcasting Day, have a strong foundation in the maihar gharana by musicians such as Sharan Rani and Uma Shankar Mishra.
Their learning of different schools helped them relate to the depth and wider perspective inherent in the rich classical genre.
Each of the albums the brothers released over the last few years have something special to look out for.
Echoes from the Yellow Land for instance is a compilation of eight North Indian ragas with Rajasthan folk music.
Their collaboration with Grammy award winner Vishwa Mohan Bhatt brought together three plucked string instruments — sitar, sarod and Mohan veena. The brothers who were in the city spoke to Metroplus on their rare blend of strings. Excerpts:
Your jugalbandi has impressed stalwarts such as Pandit Jasraj, Ravi Shankar and the Gundecha Brothers. All this at such a young age...
Your jugalbandi has impressed stalwarts such as Pandit Jasraj, Ravi Shankar and the Gundecha Brothers. All this at such a young age...
Aayush: We are fortunate to receive blessings from great musicians.
It motivates us to attain higher levels of excellence. In our opinion, the appreciation is towards our adherence to traditional repertoire and baaj (style), classical discipline and our serious approach to music.
How did you come to music from diverse academic backgrounds?
Lakshay: We were born in Delhi, I graduated in Physical Sciences from Delhi and Aayush studied Mathematics and Economics from the University of London. Though we hail from a non-musical family, our father was an amateur sitarist and that made the atmosphere conducive to developing the raag and rhythm at a young age.
Aayush: We used to listen to all the great masters of vocal and instrumental, but the technical intricacies of the music of Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and Nikhil Banerjee fascinated and inspired us to take up the art further.
How did you start learning different instruments and when did you decide to play together and bring in a style of your own?
Aayush: Since a \young age, our exposure to classical music was mostly in the form of sitar and sarod of the Maihar Gharana. We were naturally attracted towards these instruments.
We have been playing duets on stage since 2008.
Our musical repertoire is steeped in traditional formats but we have redesigned our presentation to suit the mindset of today's audiences.
The coordination comes about naturally with years of learning and association.
Lakshay: Though sitar and sarod are, in many ways the ideal instruments to be paired for a duet, a long-standing sitar and sarod duet is now a rarity in the world of music. We are reviving the true essence of this duet.
You are ingrained in the serious yet enjoyable Maihar Gharana. Elaborate on the purity of your gharana that your instruments are able to translate
Aayush: The Maihar Gharana was started by Ustad Allauddin Khan who spent a large part of his life learning and collecting knowledge from various sources.
Apart from other teachers, he spent around 40 years learning music from Ustad Wazir Khan of Rampur who was a direct descendent of Mian Tansen, the famous musician in Akbar’s court.
So Ustad Allauddin Khan received training in the purest instrumental style of rudra veena also called been ang from Ustad Wazir Khan.
He amalgamated the elements of veena, surbahar, surshringar and rabab to create a whole new baaj (playing style) for sitar and sarod.
Lakshay: Apart from the detailed and majestic style of playing Alap and Jor, Maihar Gharana is also known for a variety of beautiful compositions.
Unlike other gharanas, the compositions (called “Gats” in our gharana) are not replicas of vocal bandishes but are often intricate and multiple-cycled consisting of fine right hand and left hand techniques like krintan and Zamzama.
To the Maihar style, we present all the beautiful aspects, and also revive traditional compositions which are heard rarely.
You have always thought that classical music preservation can happen only if listeners are musically educated too...
Lakshay: If listeners are educated, it works as a check on the musicians to deliver quality performances.
Apart from sharing music, it is equally important to preserve the essence of true music.
We are designing classical music appreciation workshops and plan to conduct these in schools, colleges and corporates
