Mari Komuro (santoor) in Osaka

Last weekend I was in Osaka with santoor player Mari Komuro, a very experienced musician and disciple of the leading santoor master, Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma. Mari-san started playing santoor in 1981, started with Shiv-ji in 1987 and I believe she stayed almost continuously in Mumbai from 1991 to 2004! When she plays santoor you can feel her very deep love and devotion to santoor and Indian classical music. It was a great honour for me to accompany her this weekend.

Mari Komuro and Shen at Senkoji Temple, Hirano, Osaka.
Mari-san performed Raag Maru Behag - alap, jor, jhala, gats in Jhaptaal and Teentaal.
Osaka-based sitar teacher Takayuki Hibara was in the audience and gave much appreciation!

Mari-san with Kawaguchi-san, senior monk of Senkoji Temple. Kawaguchi-san organised these concerts and studied sitar at the same music school as Mari-san 25 years ago!

Shen and Mari Komuro (santoor)

with the guests from the second Osaka concert - a cultural evening of Indian music, food and wine (yes, Indian wine from Nashik!)

We went to the Osaka Sky Garden to see the city views.