Aditya Verma
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Indian Sarod

Aditya, born in Canada, has spent over a dozen years in India devoted to the study of Hindustani classical music and to the playing of the sarod, studying with such masters as Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Aashish Khan, Ustad Alis Akbar Khan and Ustad Zakir Hussain.

The sarod is a long-necked lute from Northern India and it has 25 metal strings. Since it has no frets, the musician slides the tips of his fingernails over the strings and plucks six melodic and rhythmic strings with a plectrum (pick) usually made of a coconut shell. Some say the sarod evolved from a Persian instrument called the rabab and has only existed for 150 to 200 years. Others say it is actually more than two thousand years old, descended from the Chitra Veena of ancient times. It is one of the most popular instruments in Hindustani classical music and considered by some as one of the world's most expressive instruments. 

At the heart of Indian music is the raga, a melodic form upon which an artist improvises. The time signature of a raga is called a tala which ranges from three-beat to 108 beat cycles and each is characterized by a different mood and associated with a season or time of day.  Musicians memorize ragas as well as the technical aspects of playing usually under long-term apprenticeships with master teachers.  Aditya has now been deemed a virtuoso in his own right and performs complex works in a variety of venues, from festivals to the Royal Conservatory of Music and as a solo performer, with tabla and tempura players, and even with the Washington Symphony Orchestra.

At the 2006 Great Lakes Folk Festival, Verma will be accompanied by Mumbai based tabla player Aditya Kalyanpur.

Links

http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/music_reviews/verma.html

http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/

www.akproductions.org

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