WOMAD

Hari Sivanesan

From Cuba, India

Soulful custodian of the sitar-like veena

Not too many of this weekend's performers can claimed to have had recordings produced by one of The Beatles. Even fewer did so when they were barely into their teenage years. Londoner Hari Sivanesan can, plucked as he was by Ravi Shankar at a ridiculously precocious age to play on Ravi's Chants Of India album, produced by the Fab Four's chief India-phile George Harrison. From such auspicious origins, Hari has continued to soar. A virtuoso player of the veena, the three-millennia-old precursor of the more familiar sitar, twentysomething Hari retains his deep fascination with Carnatic music, the classical music of the southern part of the Indian sub-continent. Most recently, he was selected as this year's mentee on the Radio 3 World Routes Academy scheme; presenter Lucy Duran describes him as "a prodigious and soulful talent". At Charlton Park, Hari is joined in collaboration with the much-admired Cuban violinist Omar Puente.

(Biography written by Nige Tassell 2011)