Amelia Maciszewski

My mission is to raise awareness and understanding about the Indian subcontinent music and culture.

Sangeet Millennium presents

Global Legacy:
Hindustani Music for the World

by

Sarode Maestro Aashish Khan
with his brother Pranesh Khan on tabla

Sangeet Millennium Ensemble opens

Sangeet Millennium welcomes one of the world’s finest sarode players, Aashish Khan, back to Austin. Khan is the scion of one of India’s leading and oldest musical lineages. Along with his father, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, and his uncle Pandit Ravi Shankar, Aashish Khan has been a key player in the internationalization of India’s musical traditions. Pranesh Khan will accompany his brother on tabla. Austin’s Sangeet Millennium Ensemble, a collective led by Khan’s disciple Amie Maciszewski, will open the program. The Sangeet Millennium Ensemble fuses together Hindustani music with jazz and other world music following the precedent set by Khan and his elders. Joining sitarist Maciszewski for this performance will be vocalist Iluminada, Alex Coke on saxophone and flute, guitarist Bruce Saunders, and Shiv Naimpally on tabla.

Aashish Khan was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2006 in the ‘Best World Music’ category for his album “Golden Strings of the Sarode” (with tabla player Zakir Hussein.) He is also a recipient of Government of India’s highest honour in performing arts, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and is the first Indian after Poet Laureate Rabindranath Tagore to have the honor of being selected as a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Besides being a high-profile performer, composer, and conductor, he is a Professor of Indian classical music at the California Institute of the Arts and the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Ustad Aashish Khan is a representative of a family of great classical musicians of India. His grandfather Ustad Alauddin Khan, a singular phenomenon in twentieth century Indian classical music, was called “Baba” (or Father) with reverence by his fellow maestros and students. His father Ustad Ali Akbar Khan is a distinguished Sarode maestro. Renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin called Ustad Ali Akbar Khan the world’s greatest living musician many years ago. Ali Akbar Khan is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. Aashish Khan’s aunt Annapurna Devi is the reclusive surbahar player and former wife of sitar legend Ravi Shankar.

Ustad Aashish Khan was born in 1939 in Maihar, a small princely state of British India, where his revered grandfather Ustad Alauddin Khan was a royal court musician. He was initiated into North Indian classical music at the age of five by his grandfather. His training (or taalim) later continued under the guidance of his father Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, and his aunt, Annapurna Devi. He is one of the most notable disciples of his grandfather Ustad Alauddin Khan and the foremost disciple of both his father Ali Akbar Khan and aunt Annapurna Devi. The founder of this great family lineage is believed to be Mian Tansen, the legendary court musician of Mughal Emperor Akbar.

Ustad Aashish Khan is a pioneer in the establishment of the world music genre, as founder of the Indo-American musical group “Shanti” with distinguished tabla player Ustad Zakir Hussain in 1969, and later, fusion group, “The Third Eye.” He was the first ever musician to compose a sarode concerto in the traditional Indian “raga” form. Ustad Aashish Khan is also one of India’s most adventurous experimenters. In “Shanti,” which preceded John McLaughlin’s “Shakt,i” he was featured playing the acoustic sarode through a fender guitar amplifier with vibrato effect.

Under Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Aashish Khan worked as a background artist on musical products for both film and stage, including three of Oscar Winner Satyajit Ray’s films and Sir Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi. During 1989-1990, Ustad Aashish Khan served as the Composer and Conductor for the National Orchestra of All India Radio, New Delhi, India, succeeding musical stalwarts like Sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar, and flautist Pandit Pannalal Ghosh.

Ustad Aashish Khan has pioneered in creating collaborations between Indian classical music and Western and world music. He has collaborated with such diverse western musicians as John Barham, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Charles Lloyd, John Handy, Alice Coltrane, Emil Richards, Dallas Smith, Don Pope, Jorge Strunz, Ardeshir Farah, and the Philadelphia String Quartet.

Notable among his many recordings are Wonderwall Music (produced by George Harrison in 1967), his U.S. debut recording Young Master of the Sarode, Sarode and Piano Jugalbandi, Shanti, Live at the Royal Festival Hall London, and Sarode & Sarang Jugalbandhi (Duet) with Ustad Sultan Khan.

Ustad Aashish Khan is currently co-leading “Shringar” with Andrew McLean and other notable New Orleans musicians such as Tim Green and Jason Marsalis. Shringar is the first foray of any classical Indian musician into the music culture of New Orleans, widely considered the Mecca of Jazz.

In September 2006, Aashish Khan announced at a press conference in Calcutta that since his forefathers were Hindu Brahmins of East Bengal, and held the surname “Debsharma,” he would also wish to use his forefathers’ surname to help people understand the root of his great musical lineage. He also stated that his family were never officially converted into Islam and Khan does not necessarily denote a Muslim. He referred to the fact that his grandfather, the late Ustad Alauddin Khan, himself said in his biography Aamar Katha that his forefathers were indeed Hindus. He also said that his given name (Aashish), as well as his brothers’ names (Dhyanesh, Pranesh, Amaresh) were all given by their grandfather Alauddin; all these are Hindu names.

• “Ustad Aashish Khan is in the forefront of those who popularised Indian classical music in the West.” – The Times of India
• “Ustad Aashish Khan is considered by many as India’s greatest living Sarode player, and second only to his father in receiving Grammy nominations.” – The Hindu

Sangeet Millennium was founded in 1999 by sitarist/ethnomusicologist Amie Maciszewski (disciple of Aashish Khan) to increase awareness and appreciation of the traditional music and dance of the Indian subcontinent by providing opportunities for all people to participate through collaborative performances, workshops and festivals. The activities help facilitate understanding and appreciation of these traditions while encouraging innovative artistic collaborations. The mission of Sangeet Millennium is also realized through education, including workshops offered by many of the distinguished visiting artists, such as her gurus Ustad Aashish Khan and Padmabhushan Girija Devi, as well as Maciszewski’s ongoing classes in Hindustani instrumental and vocal music. Programs are supported through City of Austin Cultural Contracts.