In mid-October, distinguished Indian classical musician Bahauddin Dagar was in residence at the Mittal Institute. The renowned rudra veena player, deeply versed in the Drupad tradition, spent a week engaging with the Harvard community and sharing his rare art form and musical talents. He visited two of Prof. Richard Wolf’s music classes, “Music in Islamic Contexts” and “South Asian Music”; gave a workshop to students and other interested audiences about the Drupad style in Indian classical music; and visited the South Asian music collection at MFA Boston.
At the culmination of the week-long residency, over 170 attendees gathered to experience a captivating concert by Dagar, accompanied by tanpura player Shraddha Aggarwal and percussionist Tejas Tope. In typical Dhrupad style, the performance consisted of an interplay of three components: the aalaap, single syllables used to create simple, compound, and complex patterns; the raagaa, a melodic framework; and pure improvisation. The event was part of ArtsThursdays, a university-wide initiative supported by Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA).
Listen to the concert below:
Check out the photo gallery below:
