Learning to improvise implies memorizing a bank of musical phrases, gestures and melodies as a resource to draw on in the creative process. Listen to the ease with which Shawn Mativetsky on tabla and Jonathan Voyer on santoor illuminate this raga.
ABOUT SHAWN MATIVETSKY AND JONATHAN VOYER
Shawn Mativetsky is considered one of Canada's leading ambassadors of the tabla. Course Lecturer and Instructor, Director of the McGill Tabla Ensemble, Schulich School of Music, McGill University, he has performed with Attar Project, Ragleela, Very long cat, Of Sound, Mind and Body and Ensemble Duniya. He is a leading disciple of the renowned Pandit Sharda Sahai of the Benares gharana of tabla.
Jonathan Voyer is a member of the Centre d’études et de recherche sur l’Inde, l’Asie du Sud et sa diaspora (CERIAS), is a lecturer in arts at UQAM and performs regularly in Canada, India and Europe. Jonathan is a disciple of the santoor master Pandit Satish Vyas and of the singing master Pandit Somanath Mardur.
WE ASKED SHAWN
Where will would choose to go and at what period in history if you could take a trip in space and time?
I don’t think I would go back very far in terms of time. I would choose to go back to the1970s, so as to spend more time with my tabla Guru, Pandit Sharda Sahai-ji, though depending on the year, he may have been in Varanasi, India or in the US. But if it has to be a time outside of our lifetimes, then I would say Varanasi around the year 1800, to meet the founder of the Benares gharana of tabla, Pandit Ram Sahai-ji.
LISTEN TO SHAWN AND JONATHAN
https://www.youtube.com/user/tablamontreal
https://www.shawnmativetsky.com/rivers
https://www.samskara.ca/musique
READ THIS AUTUMN
https://www.shawnmativetsky.com/rudimentaal
TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THESE MUSICIANS
Picture-Caroline Tabah
