‘No boundaries please’ sounds sacrilegious during the IPL season, but these are the buzz words of the art world. They signify a democratic art that rises above its specified genre. They have also come to denote a new order of open-minded audience.
Call it culture activism. Talking music today is as thrilling as singing. And Carnatic vocalist Sikkil Gurucharan found a new voice as a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in Residence at University of California, Davis, a reputed cross-disciplinary research and teaching institution. Over the past four months, as he addressed the students of the department of religious studies and music, conducted workshops for the public and performed collaborative concerts, he seemed to have engaged with his art in a unique way.
“I realised interacting with people who are conversant with your music is stimulating but it’s a challenge to be heard and appreciated by those who are unfamiliar with it. Meeting a passionate, young set of listeners in their own space was fun. They were eager to understand the intricacies of an alien system,” says Gurucharan. “And that made me comfortable in my new role as a creative facilitator,” he adds.
And along with the students, the well-known vocalist experienced a new learning curve. “Their innovative interpretations most often set me thinking. Their queries led me to do more research. And the best part was the group of students in associate professor Archana Venkatesan’s religious studies course seems to identify the deep connect between performing arts and spirituality in India.”
With guest lectures in the Departments of Music and Anthropology at UC Davis, Gurucharan explained how kriti was representative of a new culture in the country and saw the emergence of Tyagaraja and Muthuswami Dikshithar as composers, who, with their insightful verses, helped people relate better to their spiritual thoughts and expressions. “While sharing the stage with Rita Sahai, director of the Hindustani vocal ensemble at UC Davis, and an accomplished composer, performer and teacher, or when performing with double bass professor Paul Erhard’s Sands Around Infinity (at CU Boulder), I realised how Carnatic music can rise above technical or compositional parameters to blend with other systems in exciting, innovative ways.”
The grandson of acclaimed flautist Sikkil Kunjumani, Gurucharan took to vocal music at the insistence of his grandmother who thought he had the voice and talent to pursue it seriously. “I am fortunate to have been born into a family of musicians and to be able to take forward the legacy. Also nothing can be more calming and fulfilling than exploring this art form that lends itself so beautifully to improvisation,” says Gurucharan, who spoke in detail about his joyful tryst with talas and ragas, backing it with some soulful singing on the radio show ‘Insight with Beth Ruyak’ during his fellowship programme.
According to this young vocalist, who for the past few years has been performing to the accompaniment of a piano (with friend and collaborator Anil Srinivasan) instead of the usual set of instruments in a kutcheri, “The exquisiteness of the form is in the way you discover and rediscover the many ways in which phrases can be rendered and reach out to the listeners. Though the roots are ancient, they do not tie you down. It’s an art that liberates you,” he smiles.
