254. Melodies and Memories

Noted musician and scholar Satyasheel Deshpande, delves into and demystifies the music of his Guru, Padmavibhushan Pandit Kumar Gandharva in an illustrated talk. This rich, flavourful mehfil, in Hindi with some English, begins with a recording of Kumar Gandharva, the child prodigy, before moving on to include both speech and song that span the many facets of his musical personality and ideas as they evolved from the 1950s to 1992 when he passed away. Satyasheel Deshpande also shares anecdotes from his years with Kumar ji, who was a close friend of his father, the renowned musicologist Vamanrao Deshpande, visiting and staying at their culturally vibrant Walkeshwar home in South Mumbai along with other great musicians of the era. This episode of BIC Talks covers the following aspects of Kumar Gandharva's journey in music - Parampara, Raj-Vichar, Navsarjan, Gayaki and Bhavishya He is accompanied by his disciple and son, the performer, teacher and archivist of Hindustani Khayal music, Srijan Deshpande on vocal support and Rupak Kharvandikar on tabla. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.