An Memorable Evening of Indian Music

The World Mosaic concert at the Skirball Cultural Center Thursday night had a great deal going for it up front. The third event in the center’s outstanding series of world music programs, the evening featured double violinist-vocalist Shankar, his youthful and frequent musical associate, double violinist Gingger, tabla player Zakir Hussain and ghatam player T.H. “Vikku” Vinayakram.

That’s a world-class lineup of Indian classical music artists. And the prospects for the evening were enhanced when the legendary Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka were seated in the front row of the audience. Aside from the obvious artistic challenge of Shankar’s presence, there were familial connections, as well. Hussain is the son of the late Alla Rakha, Ravi Shankar’s principal tabla companion. And there were other linkages: the vocalist and double violinist Shankar is the son of the violinist V. Lakshminarayana Iyer, Gingger is his granddaughter.

Out of all this subtext came an extraordinary evening of music, with Shankar’s singing and violin work as the focal point. Ranging easily across the sensual, occasionally microtonal, intervals of the ragas he chose as the foundation for his improvising, he was equally adroit with the decidedly untraditional double violin, a 10-string electronic instrument that approximates string instruments from bass viol to violin. He never used the unusual instrument as a gimmick, choosing instead to emphasize its powers of vocalization to reflect the lines of his singing.

The lengthy, but consistently compelling concert closed with a stirring percussion duet between Hussain’s tabla playing and Vinayakram’s amazing work on the large clay ghatam. Their high flying exchanges were astounding--exceptional enough to draw enthusiastic applause from a full house crowd, including maestro Ravi Shankar.