Music Circle’s Mission Remains Unbroken

“The Ramayana” is one of the world’s great epic tales. A classic exposition underscoring the vital importance of dharma (righteousness), it is also a formidable tale of kings, queens, heroes, villains and magical creatures, chronicling the adventures of Ram and the ultimate triumph of his good dharma over the forces of evil.

Usually celebrated in October and November, during the Hindu festival of Dussehra, “The Ramayana” receives a more unusual exposition Saturday, when the Music Circle presents “Ramayana L.A.” at Thorne Hall in Pasadena’s Occidental College. The program features dancers and musicians from four countries--Bali, Cambodia, India and the Indonesian island of Java--offering their individual cultural renderings of the classic legend.

“Ramayana L.A.” is one of 10 annual programs in the Music Circle season. Now in its 27th year, the organization has been one of the Southland’s primary small-venue presenters of high-quality classical Indian music and dance. This year’s “Ramayana” program is the second such event--the first was in 1998--and typifies the desire of the Music Circle’s president, sitar player and educator Harihar Rao, to maintain a continuing Southland presence for Indian classical performing arts.

For the tall, bearded Rao, now in his 70s, the concept of presenting Indian programs aimed at sophisticated, knowledgeable audiences actually predated the existence of the Music Circle, triggered in part by his long association with Ravi Shankar. His connection with the legendary Indian classical artist reaches back to the 1940s, when he was a sitar student, disciple and teaching assistant in Bombay and later in New Delhi.

Rao moved to L.A. in the early ‘60s to teach Indian music and study jazz at the college level.

“I had a Fulbright scholarship,” he says, “with the option to go to either the Eastman School in Rochester, N.Y., or to UCLA. I had lots of American friends in India--I had been in love with America since I was a kid--so I consulted with one of them. He said, ‘Do you like warm weather or cold weather?’ and I said, ‘Warm, of course.’ And he said, ‘Do you like women dressed in wool coats or bikinis?’ Well, that settled that.”

In addition to his tenure at UCLA (during which he directed the Indian studies group in the Institute of Ethnomusicology), he has also taught at Caltech, Cal State L.A. and Cal Poly Pomona. In the ‘60s, Rao was also active in the crossover music community, a major influence on the rhythmic experiments of Los Angeles trumpeter-bandleader Don Ellis and a member, with Ellis, of the Hindustani Jazz Sextet. Equally important, he has maintained a continuing guru-shishya (teacher-student) relationship with Shankar. And that relationship played an important, if indirect role, in the creation of the Music Circle.

In 1968, after a two-year sabbatical in India, he returned to Los Angeles to discover that Shankar had bought a house on Highland Avenue.

“He had a fascination for Hollywood,” says Rao with a chuckle. “It was a large house, and when he went out on tour, I would sometimes serve as the caretaker for him. Well, during one of those absences, a very fine Indian musician came through town and some of my friends thought it would be nice to hear her. So we had a get-together at Ravi’s house. About six months later, another sitar player came to town, and we did a second concert. When Ravi came back and found out what I had done, he said, ‘That’s a great idea. You should do more of this.’ ”

Coincidentally, Rao and Shankar were invited to Occidental College for a faculty lunch--where they discovered what would become one of their regular venues.

“We wandered around the campus and found the chapel,” Rao recalls. “And he said, ‘This is a good place for concerts.’ I said, ‘But isn’t it too big?’ And he just laughed and said, ‘Let’s hope that the audiences will grow.’ ”

The Music Circle’s semiofficial beginning was in 1973, with Shankar occasionally appearing in programs to help matters along. (“He played free concerts,” says Rao, “and was really our benefactor.”) Since that time, it has produced about 250 events, holding monthly concerts over its 10-month-long season each year (there are respites in August and December).

It has never been easy to keep the concerts going, however. Supported by membership funding, the Music Circle now has nearly 700 members who pay an annual fee of $25, which allows them to purchase tickets at discount prices. Other funding comes from public sources. But maintaining the Music Circle has largely been a labor of love for Rao and his wife, Paula, a teacher in the Pasadena Unified School District whom he met here in the ‘60s. He reports that he has never taken any payment for his work and that, in fact, he has invested a great deal of his own funds to keep the enterprise going.

Still, one would assume that, with, according to Rao, an estimated Indian population of 400,000 in the Southland, audiences might readily available.

“Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that,” he says. “How many Americans support Michael Jackson as opposed to classical music? Indians are really no different. They will turn out in the thousands for a concert of Indian pop stars or a performance by a legendary artist such as vocalist Lata Mangeshkar. But not for classical music.

“And now, the Indian scene in Los Angeles has become very fragmented. When we started, we had, for the most part, the only regular classical Indian music performances in Los Angeles. But now there are many opportunities, but primarily for extremely well-known artists. Younger, lesser-known performers don’t have an opportunity to get into those venues, even though they are very skilled. So we try to help them along.”

For those who have taken the time to experience the Music Circle’s programs, the rewards are many. Rao, for instance, has introduced to L.A. such now well-known artists as violinist L. Subramaniam and L. Shankar, singer Lakshmi Shankar and tabla player Akir Hussain. (None of these Shankars are related to each other or to Ravi.) Rao reports that they were especially eager to play in Los Angeles in order to have the opportunity to go to Disneyland.

The most recent Music Circle event featured four senior disciples of acclaimed sarod artist Ali Akbar Khan. Presented in an atmosphere of quiet concentration, with tea and coffee available at the program breaks, the concerts are rare opportunities for contemplative artistic experiences.

But Rao recognizes that turn-of-the-millennium audiences have for the most part come to expect larger, grander presentations.

“One tabla player and one sitar player are not going to have the same appeal as a stage full of colorful costumes and dancers,” he says. “And that’s one of the reasons why Indian music has had difficulties in attracting an audience. It is, after all, a classical music and can’t compete with the traditional music of, say, mariachi, in terms of the excitement of the presentation.”

Except, perhaps, when it comes to “Ramayana.” Along with the three hours of music and dance theater, there will be a craft and food festival highlighting multiple Asian cultures.

“We believe our ‘Ramayana L.A.’ event has its own kind of excitement, its own color and dance,” Rao says. “And because it represents the connection between a number of different cultures, and does so within the classical framework of each of those cultures, it really symbolizes what the Music Circle is all about.”

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“RAMAYANA L.A.,” Thorne Hall, Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road. Date: Saturday, 5 p.m. Prices: $15 to $45. Phone: Tickets (805) 581-9940. Music Circle information: (626) 405-9759.