WOMAD

Ronu Majumdar

From India

Ronu Majumdar with special guest Trilok Gurtu (India)Biography by Andy Morgan, July 2002:Ronu Majumdar plays music from a floating world and his magical instrument is the bansuri, or Indian flute. Pandit Ranendra (or ‘Ronu’) Majumdar grew up in the holy Indian city of Varanasi where he was taught to play the bansuri by his father who was in turn a disciple of the great Pandit Pannalal Ghosh, the man who brought the flute out of folkloric obscurity and onto the classical concert stage. Ronu Majumdar is a frequent accompanist to the great Ravi Shankar and he performed with Shankar and Philip Glass on the BMG album, ‘Passages’. He has also recorded with the late lamented George Harrison as well as Ry Cooder and the great tabla player Zakir Hussain. The gorgeous ethereal sounds of his flute have graced the soundtracks of films by Merchant Ivory, Mike Nichols and the great Bollywood director, RD Burman. His collaboration with the American banjo virtuoso, Bela Fleck, on the album ‘Tabula Rasa’ which was released by Water Lily Acoustic Records won Majumdar a Grammy nomination. Most recently he joined an A-list of rock and world music stars including Michael Stipe, Robbie Williams, Asha Bhosle and Baaba Maal on the ambitious Palm Pictures produced album ‘One Giant Leap’. Majumdar is accompanied by Abhijit Banarjee on tabla and Nandini Srikar on vocals, and one of his special guests at Rivermead will be Antonio Forcione on guitar. As if all that weren’t enough, Ronu Majumdar will also be sharing a stage with the legendary Indian percussionist and composer Trilok Gurtu, who blew audiences away with his performance at last year’s WOMAD festival. Gurtu’s career and fearlessly original approach to music require a bible-length treatise to do them justice. In short, Ronu Majumdar and Trilok Gurtu on one stage is an event you’d be very foolish to miss!Short biography 2002:Ry Cooder has described Ronu Majumdar as ‘the Dr Feelgood of the Indian flute’, and his appearance at Rivermead features a very special collaboration here with the legendary percussionist Trilok Gurtu.