Harsh Narayan (Photo: ANUROO)
When the young virtuoso Harsh Narayan plays the sarangi, the traditional stringed instrument carved from a single block of wood emits a rich, textured, and haunting sound. The sarangi, rarely heard in the last hundred years, has become a vital instrument again thanks in part to Narayan, 31, one of the rising stars of Hindustani classical music. He made his international debut in 2003, with a concert at Royal Festival Hall in London. He has since performed across India and in Spain, Portugal, and Germany, and at Le Forum du Blanc-Mesnil in Paris.
Narayan carries on one of the world’s great musical traditions, an improvisatory music based on hundreds of ragas (melodic modes) that reached its first flowering under the lavish patronage of the Mughal emperors in the 16th century. He trained under his grandfather, Ram Narayan, the influential sarangi master who toured with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and put the instrument back on the map of Indian classical music.
Narayan is accompanied on the tabla (drum pair) by Aditya Kalyanpur, who has played with many living legends of Indian music as well as such jazz giants as guitarists Larry Coryell and John McLaughlin. Together, they introduce you to the ragas of Indian classical music and the unforgettable sound of the sarangi—as played by a budding master.
Ticket holders may visit the Sackler Gallery of Art at 6 p.m. for a pre-concert gallery tour of the photography exhibition Notes From the Desert: Photographs by Gauri Gill, guided by Debra Diambond, curator of South and Southeast Asian Art. Check-in for the tour near the Visitor Information Desk at 5:45pm at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery located at 1050 Independence Ave SW Washington, DC 20560. You must enter through the Haupt Garden. The Mall and Independence Avenue entrances are closed until 2017.
The concert is presented jointly by the Freer and Sackler Galleries and Smithsonian Associates.
