Portrait of Manjiri Asanare Kelkar
Concert of Indian music with Manjiri Asanare Kelkar, Khyal Singer
Concert
7 July h. 18, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Sala degli Arazzi
Free admission subject to availability
Manjiri Asanare Kelkar, voice
Nitin Ware, tabla
Dnyaneshwar Sonawane, harmonium
For this appointment with South Asian cultured music, the Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies invites the Indian singer Manjiri Asanare Kelkar, one of the leading contemporary exponents of khyal: the most popular classical North Indian vocal genre today.
Khyal (a name which derives from Persian, and may be translated as ‘imagination’) emphasises the singer’s creative ability to improvise melodies based on raga: the modal structures of Indian classical music. Manjiri’s training began under the guidance of his father, the well known tabla player Anand Asanare, and then continued with Madhusudan Kanetkar, a refined exponent of the Jaipur style school, and – more recently – with the famous singer Kishori Amonkar.
In this her first performance in Italy, Manjiri Asanare Kelkar will be accompanied – as is customary in khyal – by a harmonium player and, on percussion, a tablist.
Preceding the concert, on 6 July, there will be an encounter of academic exploration during which, via live streaming, Laura Leante – professor of ethnomusicology at Durham University – will interview Manjiri Asanare Kelkar on the practice of Indian khyal singing in the Jaipur tradition.