Ustad Aashish Khan, sarode player and khalifa of the Senia Maihar Gharana, is coming to Seattle this spring for an evening concert at UW's Ethnic Cultural Center Theater.  He is one of India's seniormost artists and the only living performing disciple of his grandfather, the legendary Acharya Allauddin Khan. Ustadji was born in 1939 in the princely state Maihar, where his grandfather taught many of the musical luminaries of the last century, including Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Smt. Annapoorna Devi, and Pandit PannalalGhosh. In this environment and through rigorous training from his grandfather, Ustad Aashish Khan imbibed a traditional, dhrupad-based approach to raga, tala, and composition, an unbroken tradition deriving from the 16th-century dhrupadiya Mian Tansen.

Ustadji has developed sarode playing to an uprecedented level of technical mastery, inventing novel rhythmic patterns as well as approaches to gamak and meend (glissando) to critical acclaim the world over.  His work has been recognized by the Indian government in the form of the Sangeet Natak Academy Award, and by the US National Academy in the form of a Grammy Award Nomination in the World Music category.

 

Ustadji is the Nicholas England Chair for North Indian Music at California Institute of the Arts http://directory.calarts.edu/node/1980.

Ustadji will be accompanied by Javad Butah on Tabla and disciple Mallar Bhattacharya on sarode.

Admission: $10 SIMA, Ragamala and Pratidhwani Members/$15 General Admission