Indian Classical Music Concert - Wednesday 26 October - St Pats

The Ireland India Institute DCU, with the Indian Classical Music Society of Ireland, invites you to an evening of Indian music with Sougata Roy Chowdhury (sarod) and Rupak Kumar Pandit (tabla) playing the ancient and sophisticated classical music of North India. The Ireland India Institute will offer an evening of classical Indian music on 26 October. Sougata Roy Chowdhury and Rupak Kumar Pandit will play traditional Indian instruments in an enchanted evening. Rupak Kumar Pandit is a young tabla player of the Benares gharana and Sougata Roy Chowdhury is one of the finest sarod players of his generation. The details of the venue will be announced soon. If you are interested by the event, please contact us at india@dcu.ie.

The concert will be held in St Patrick's College, B block, room B103 from 6.00pm. It is a free event, sponsored by the Ireland India Institute. More here.

Sougata Roy Chowdhury is one of the finest sarod players of his generation. He is a student of the late Dhyanesh Khan and Ashish Khan, descendants and disciples of the legendry Alladin Khan and his son Ali Akbar Khan, and also of sitar and surbahar player Pandit Santosh Banerjee. Coming from a family steeped in art and music at Tagore’s University in Shantiniektan, Sougata displays a huge dynamic range from long, sustained slide notes to rapid rhythmic virtuosity, all within the classical framework. He has toured widely across India and Europe. The sarod is an exquisite fretless instrument carved from a single block of wood with a goat-skin belly and 25 strings. Born in 1973 in a Bengali artistic family, Sougata grew up in Shantiniketan, Tagore’s legendry university town. His father, Sarbari Roy Chowdhury, was an eminent sculptor and a great music connoisseur and archivist. Sougata’s mother, Ajanta Roy Chowdhury, is an Indian classical vocalist. Sougata started to learn sarod at the age of 10 with the blessing of the great Ustad Ali Akbar Khan himself. His first teacher was Ustad Dyanesh Khan, son of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, and he studied with him for 9 years, until Dyanesh Khan’s untimely death. After that, Sougata continued his music education Ustad Aashish Khan. Over the past 15 years, Sougata has been studying with Pandit Santosh Banerjee, who is one of the main disciples of Ustad Md. Dabir Khan, the last descendent of the Miyan Tansen family. All of this has allowed Sougata to develop into the mature musician he is today. Sougato is a devotee of the sarod Maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and considers that the late Ustad opened the spiritual path for his practice of music. Sougata did Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology from Vishva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan. He also has a degree in Indian Classical music from Prachin Kaka Kendra of Chandigarh. He was awarded a scholarship from the Indian Government, as well as The Pandit Ravi Kichlu Foundation Golden Talent Contest. He performs regularly for All India Radio, Kolkata. Since 2000, Sougata has been performing, teaching and holding workshops in France, Spain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Ireland, as well as in various major venues in India. He has been invited to play regularly at the annual Saptak Music Festival of Ahmedabad, one of the most prestigious classical music festivals in India.

Rupak Kumar Pandit is a young tabla player of the Benares gharana. He started his basic training with his father, Naresh Kumar Pandit, who himself is a senior disciple of late tabla maestro Chottelal Mishra from Benares, India. At the age of 13, Rupak became a 'gandha-bandh' disciple of Pandit Chottelal Mishra. He went to Benares for several years to learn the authentic traditional methods of the Benaras gharana in the lineage of Grand Guruji the late Pt. Anokhelal Mishra (the wizard of the one-finger 'na dhin dhin na' and 'dhire dhire '). Rupak is currently living in Celbridge, Ireland.