WOMAD

Rahul Sharma

From India

Biography by Andy Morgan, July 2002:The ravishing mountain landscapes of Kashmir have inspired local musicians to flights of fancy for centuries and the santoor has often been their instrument of choice. Nevertheless, this southern Asian cousin of the hammer-dulcimer was long considered too rude and lumpen to be included in the rarefied circle of instruments acceptable in Hindustani or North Indian classical music. The Kashmiri santoor just sounded too harsh in its purely Kashmiri folk context and classical musicians deemed it unable to deliver the elegant gliding arpeggios so crucial in classical music. About fifty years ago, a certain Uma Dutt Sharma persuaded his son Shivkumar Sharma that it was time for the santoor to shake off its inferiority complex and spruce up its act. New strings were trialed and different strikers were tested to increase its gliding potential. Eventually Shivkumar Sharma became one of India’s foremost interpreters of Hindustani music, bringing the santoor definitively within the classical music pale and becoming a byword for excellence and innovation in the process. These qualities have now been passed to Shivkumar’s son, Rahul Sharma whose mastery of the santoor’s sprinkling dreamlike tones is second to none. In September 2000, Rahul Sharma performed a special concert with tabla player Ustad Shafat Ahmed Khan and pakhawaj player / percussionist Pandi Bhawani Shankar in Turin under the title ‘Music Of The Himalayas’. It was a superb performance and luckily for the rest of us it was also recorded and will be released on 22nd July by Real World Records. Listening to Rahul Sharma play is like floating in ether, far above the harsh and grating ugliness of modern hatred and war. It seems that Kashmir is in need of its traditional musicians now more than ever.Short biography 2002:Rahul Sharma is a gifted and inspirational player of the Indian santoor, or one hundred string hammered dulcimer. His outstanding skills were inspired and nurtured by his father Shiv Kumar Sharma and Rahul continues his family’s illustrious musical legacy.