Art Base

Ragini Shankar is a virtuose violin player from India. She has a grand trajectory of musical heritage: her grandmother is the violin legend N. Rajam and her mother, Sangeetha Shankar, is also a formidable exponent of the instrument. Ragini Shankar and her younger sister Nandini received their initial talim from their grandmother, and their mother supervised what they learned. The two sisters have performed regularly, both as soloists and with their grandmother and mother. The listeners who heard her play with her grandmother Rajam at the Dover Lane Music Conference in Kolkata recognized her talent, she was rewarded with sustained applause after many of her solo pieces. Like Rajam, she opened her recitals with a vistaar in the gayaki mode and then, as the recital progressed, she gradually introduced elements of tantrakari to culminate in an impressive jhala. Naturally, Shankar has received stellar guidance in the presentation of a recital, but she has indeed done her training justice. When asked whether the fact that she and her younger sister play the same instrument could lead to eventual competition, Shankar is not disingenuous. “My grandmother has developed her own style of playing the violin in the gayaki mode. There are very few violin players who play in that style. It is such a big world, so many listeners. And my sister and I are just two people. How can that be a crowd?” she asked. Her quiet confidence probably stems from a sense of her lineage and her grounded talim. At the same time, she does not want to be completely restricted by this background. Until now, she has played only pure classical recitals, but said she was open to trying out collaborative ventures. “My mother and grandmother have given their approval,” she said, with a laugh. This fortnight, though, she’ll be bringing pure classical to the capital.
Guillaume Renaud is originally a composer and guitar player. He discoverend Indian classical music and tabla percussion in 2001. He then took lessons with Shankar Ghosh and Prabhu Edouard, in Calcutta and Paris. At the same time he started playing tabla solos and accompanying musicians as Sougata Roy Chowdury, Rajib Karmakar, Rishab Prasanna.

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