On An Overgrown Path

In 1994 the vinyl albums Karuna Supreme and Rainbow were bundled together in the two CD box seen above. Both featured sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan - son of the legendary teacher Allauddin Khan whose pupils included Ravi Shankar - and the African American saxophonist John Handy . Karuna Supreme was first released in 1976 and also featured Zakir Hussain (tabla) and Yogish S. Sahota (tampura). Rainbow followed five years later with the two lead players supplemented by Dr. L. Subrahamiam (violon), Shyam Kane (tabla), and Mary Johnson (tampura). Ali Akbar Khan and John Handy first worked together at the Monterey and Berlin Jazz Festivals in the early 1970s. Ali Akbar Khan firmly believed in music as a spiritual art, and John Handy studied at the Ali Akbar College of Music in California and practised meditation. Both albums were recorded for the MPS label in Germany and produced by Joachim-Ernst Berendt who was one of the label's founders. Berendt was the author of two inf...

L'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc may not be in the premiere league of global orchestras. But the Moroccan orchestra can still teach its more prestigious cousins a thing or two. Below is the 'award winning' poster for the London Symphony Orchestra's 2018/19 season. And topping and tailing this post are the simple but attention grabbing promotional graphics used on Facebook and elsewhere for L'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc's pioneering concert tour which takes Mahler's Fifth Symphony to Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech and Tangier. In Morocco a small but not insignificant new audience has been introduced ingeniously to Gustav Mahler, and through him to the glories of Western classical music. While in London the ultra-cool art director of an expensive London creative agency has their head stuck up their letter 'H'. New Overgrown Path posts are available via RSS/email by entering your email address in the right-hand sidebar. Any copyrigh...

That is violinist and concert curator extraordinaire Hugo Ticciati in the photo just sitting . My post about his ' White Light: The Space Between ' project with the Swedish O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra generated considerable interest, including this thoughtful comment from a reader: In addition to the concert hall's rigidity in programming, it has also moved incredibly slowly in timing of concerts - in the UK at least 7.30 remains a norm. OK, so there are some late-night, Sunday morning, and early evening performances, but more imaginative timings, perhaps combined with inter-linked programmes, could prove attractive. After all, since the advent of recorded music we have been able to choose when to listen to music, and not everyone finds the 'main event of the evening' attractive - or even easily digestible - see the 'problem' of providing a suitably complementary first half to Betthoven's 9th, for example. That comment makes an important but overlo...

These photos were taken by me at Chithurst Buddhist Monastery where we stopped over recently on the long journey from East Anglia to explore parts of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Chithurst is a Theravada Buddhist Monastery in the Thai Forest Tradition with a lineage that includes celebrated teachers such as Ajahn Chah and Ajahn Sumedo . The Thai Forest School of Buddhism appeals because it predates the quasi-superstitious elements found in the higher profile Mahayana tradition. However the reformist nature of Theravada Buddhism means it eschews the exotic rituals found in Tibetan Buddhism and other Mahayana sects. As a result it has no tradition of sacred music such as that practised by the exiled Gyuto Monks of the T ibetan Gelug Buddhist Order . The Gyuto Monks monks are celebrated for their extraordinary sound produced by overtone singing. In 1986 Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart recorded the Gyuto Monks for an album subtitled 'Tibetan Tantric Choir' for the Wi...

Classical music voices were notably absent from recent worldwide protests about climate change . Which is puzzling considering classical music's dogged belief in its own ability to change the world . But is not puzzling when the BBC Proms devotes a concert to the devastation of nature complete with a recorded contribution from Greta Thunberg just days before flying in the lacklustre Shanghai Symphony Orchestra for a single concert. (If any more evidence is needed of classical music's single-issue fanaticism , EU flags were in abundance at the Proms Last Night, but free Tibet flags were notably absent when the Shanghai stooges played). Thankfully at least one classical musician can see the wood from the fast-disappearing trees. That is Richard Heinberg in the photo. He is an accomplished violinist, but is best known for his extensive writings on energy, economic, and ecological issues, including oil depletion. In 2017 Richard performed Paganini's Sonata Concertata ...

When I interviewed conductor Olivier Holt in 2016 about his work with l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc he explained that his mission with the Moroccan orchestra was "to provoke curiosity and joy". There is no better evidence of that mission than his ambitious programme next month which brings Mahler's Fifth Symphony to four Moroccan cities including Marrakech. The concerts are this year's contribution to the orchestra's annual celebration of Les religions à l’unisson promoting unity, tolerance and peace between the three great monotheistic religions*. Paired with the Mahler symphony is an arrangement of Schubert's Ave Maria commissioned by l'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc with soloists including tenor Smahi El Harati, who has sung the Muslim proclamation Allahu Akbar (God is great) for a concert audience including Pope Francis and Morocco's King Mohammed VI . That header photo was taken by me at an al fresco performance by l'O...

Edward Gardner's recent propitious appointment as principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra received widespread coverage in the classical media. While elsewhere the classical industry has gone all self-congratulatory about its 'woke' credentials - African American vernacular for social awareness - as instanced by Jamie Barton's antics at the Last Night of the Proms . But the London Philharmonic's long-term and sole principal corporate partner JTI has received no similar coverage. Classical fans can be forgiven for assuming that JTI is another one of the nice generous accountancy or law partnerships that conveniently provide a significant slice of classical sponsorship. It is an easy mistake to make: because clicking on every other corporate sponsor logo on the LPO website takes you to the sponsor's home page. But by an unfortunate - or possibly deliberate - oversight the JTI logo is not linked. So to further social awareness let me restore t...