Sitar musician Niladri Kumaar previously toured the United States with the late tabla musician Zakir Hussain, and now, Kumaar returns to Seattle to perform a tribute to his former collaborator. The Space In Between the Notes honoring Hussain is scheduled for October 4 at the Moore Theatre.
Those earlier duet performances with Hussain taught Kumaar some important lessons. “He showcased that, in spite of the success he had, to never take any concert for granted,” Kumaar remembered. “Always approach it with the same zeal, passion, and irrespective of any odds faced, the show must go on.” Kumaar believes that this persistence was only possible because of the love that Hussain always felt toward his music and tradition.
Now, the current tour honors the relationship between the sitar and tabla in Indian musical tradition. “Sitar and tabla, these two instruments, share their destinies intertwined,” Kumaar enthused. “They have a historical legacy and are the cultural treasures or custodians of the kind of Indian classical music that has been played through them all these years.”
On October 4 in Seattle, Kumaar will be joined by Satyajit Talwalkar on tabla, Agnelo Fernandes on keys, and Sambit Chatterjee on drums, highlighting Hussain’s legacy while also delving deeply into the centuries-old history of Indian music. “There have been so many great masters of this art form, especially the sitar, that it feels that if you could even try to assimilate the best aspects of each master, it could take a few lifetimes if not more,” Kumaar said.
His earliest memory of hearing the sitar occurred when his father played an original song, composed just for Kumaar during his toddlerhood. “But I have heard my Baba say this innumerable times, that he would play sitar right from the time I was in my mother’s womb,” Kumaar recounted, “because he had known that the brain and hearing is developed even before being born.”
At age four, Kumaar himself began to learn the sitar, including the song that his father had composed specially for him. “As a child, like clay, I was in a way just being molded by my father, my Guru, through his training,” Kumaar said.
It didn’t come easy at first. “I remember how hard it was for my father to make me sit,” Kumaar shared. “I was so into sports and playing, so those days of discipline are quite vivid.”
But fame came early, when Kumaar began performing at age six. “I had played a national TV program as a child,” he recalled. “That video is online, and back then my name and face had come in the newspapers. And for a kid, I suddenly got the spotlight.” This was a turning point for Kumaar.
One of his fondest memories from these early years was his first concert at Pondicherry. “After the show, a gentleman out of love had come up to me and gave me ‘shagun,’ in India the tradition of giving blessings, and that memory stayed on with me,” he said. “As an artist, all we are in search of is blessings.”
As Kumaar continued to study sitar, he also developed his own style. “Going from inheritance to creating your own identity, your own voice in music, is a challenging journey itself,” he observed.
Part of this journey includes spirituality, as Kumaar emphasizes the connections between Indian classical music and mythology. “My mother used to tell me that you should seek inspiration from Goddess Durga, who in the mythological stories was endowed with five pairs of hands,” Kumaar relayed. “Each hand held a specialty, whether a weapon, or a power, or a knowledge of the various gods, and they gave it to her as a blessing.”
He considers his father’s broad musical teachings to be similar to these five pairs of hands. “Since I was a kid, I was inspired by almost all the sitar greats and then eventually even by other instrumentalists and also of other genres,” he said.
Now Kumaar hopes to convey that inspiration to his audience. “I strongly feel I am just learning what it takes to play the music that touches the divine, and for me, the divinity resides in each listener,” he explained. “The only difference now for me is I am a little less afraid to take that leap of faith in a concert to search for that divinity, and I would hope and pray the audiences be part of the search.”
The Space In Between the Notes will be performed on October 4 at the Moore Theatre, 1932 Second Avenue, Seattle.
