New music from old modal traditions


That photo was taken at a 2003 concert performance of Ross Daly's Iris project. Ross is second from left* and in the centre is the revered sarangi player Dhruba Ghosh who died recently. For me Iris is one of Ross' finest projects; the CD has been long deleted but the album can be downloaded legally for free from his personal website. Ross Daly's mission is not to create (con)fusions of old music traditions, but to create a new music tradition drawing on old modal forms. Iris is a case of mission magnificently accomplished; probably the best track on a stellar album is Indra Dhanush for which Dhruba Ghosh takes centre stage - audition via the stream below.



* The musicians on Iris are Ross Daly - (rabab, Cretan lyra, tarhu, tanpoura, laouto), Dhruba Ghosh - India (sarangi, vocals), Hamid Reza Khabazi - Iran (tar,vocals), Partha Sarathi Mukherjee - India (tabla), Vassilis Rakopoulos - Greece (guitar), Kelly Thoma - Greece (Cretan lyra), Giorgos Xylouris - Greece (Cretan laouto, vocals), and Pedram Khavar-Zamini - Iran (tombak)

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