The Mishras – Pandit Shivnath Mishra & Deobrat Mishra (Sitars), Prashnat Mishra (Tabla), Sunday May 12, 2013, 7:30pm at Centre 64.

It seems that to be an Indian Classical Musician one needs to be born into the family “business”. It also helps if one is dedicated to many, many hours of hard practice. The great Indian Sarod player Ali Akbar Khan belonged to a family dynasty of musicians and started his formal studies as a vocalist at the age of 3. His lessons with his farther extend over the entire length of each day.  The sitar player Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka are another well known inter-generational family of Indian classical musicians. To this list we can add The Mishras who were in Kimberley for a concert at Centre 64. With the grandfather Pandit Shivnath Mishra, the son Deobrat Mishra and the nephew Prashant Mishra it was a rare opportunity to hear an inter-generational family of Indian musicians sharing their music with the world. This is their second visit to Kimberley. Deobrat and Prashant performed at Centre 64 back in 2010. (for the review and images from that concert go to the link The Mishras ). At that time the Tabla player Prashant was still in his teens. For this concert the two younger musicians were joined by the grandfather Shivnath on one of his rare trips outside his native home in Benares, India. For this particular performance they performed the raga GWATI as the first half of their program. Normally an Indian raga can go for several hours but as a concession to western audiences they are usually shortened. That being said this raga lasted around 60 minutes. That is somewhat longer than your average 3 minute pop tune. As with their previous concert the second half of the program was dedicated to shorter pieces that included a composition dedicated to Holi, the Indian Festival of Colors, a composition dedicated to Shiva and another in keeping with our wonderful mountain scenery. The Mishras intend to resume their teaching agenda in Nelson in the near future and should be back through this region next year. Here are some more images from the concert (click for a larger view).

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