Masters of Sarangi tour

This August I was lucky and blessed to have a tour around the Brisbane region with sarangi masters, Pt Santosh Mishra (Varanasi) and his son Sri Sangeet Mishra (now based in Mumbai). If you've seen concerts in Varanasi there's a very good chance you've seen Santosh-ji accompanying some great singer or tabla soloist, as he is invariably invited to all concerts for his great accompaniment. Santosh-ji and Sangeet-bhai's duets were just marvellous, as they naturally played together in a true jugalbandi - two people playing as one. In all we had 8 performances and I'm very much looking forward to their next tour! I've posted a larger selection of photos in my Facebook album, "Masters of Sarangi".

We participated in the Indian Independence Day function at Qld Conservatorium on 15 Aug.

Our first full concert was a home concert at Sim and Pat Symons home in Sunshine Coast. Yuki opened all of our concerts with Dhrupad or Bhajan (depending on the concert), accompanied by Sangeet-bhai's lush sarangi.

On Saturday afternoon we went up to Toowoomba to join Tenzin Choegyal in his concert there. We just performed a short raga, and 3 of the attendees drove all the way to Bracken Ridge (2 hours each way) for our full raga concert that night!

Bracken Ridge concert

We had the first home concert at our new house in Oxley
- what a way to inaugurate our new home!

The Nimbin concert was the biggest of the tour.

Many thanks to promoter DanaLee Mynard of Spirited Productions.

Nimbin concert

Workshop at Ocean Shores

Ocean Shores home concert - a packed house!

Final concert in Mt Gravatt, thanks to Swara Mohini's Anant Bellary.

Opened by sitarist Smt Shrabani Choudhury.

We had such a great time at all the concerts, but especially the last one :-)

Taro + Sangeet 2009 part 1 - BrisByron (with video)

I've just completed my first "national" tour (in Australia, national usually means "at least a few states"), with sarangi player Sangeet Mishra and bansuri player Taro Terahara. We drove 4500km and did 13 gigs in 18 days, starting in Brisbane and Byron and then after a big drive through central NSW to Wangaratta, Castlemaine and Melbourne, then through Canberra and Sydney back home to Brisbane again. What an experience! I'm going to let the pictures do the talking, starting in this post with the BrisByron sector, the First Test...

Practice on first day - Taro and Sangeet had never met before. The good chemistry was evident from the start though.

An impromptu home concert on the Gold Coast. Thanks to Gerry Rosanove for hosting us.

Our first chance for a group publicity shot.

Home concert at the "Temple of Melodious Sound" in Ocean Shores, near Byron Bay. This was the biggest concert of the tour - I love home concerts! The tamboura player here is Matthew Weekes, with whom I have a sitar-tabla CD recorded several years ago.

The view from Ocean Shores. We also had a beautiful ocean swim that day - Sangeet's first!

Concert at Sri Saileshwara Sai Baba Temple in Brisbane

Sangeet at Sai Baba Temple

Home concert in St Lucia, Brisbane. This was an excellent concert, and the recording is available for download on my website. Coincidentally, this house was right next door to the place I lived in 1992 while studying at university.

Some video of the St Lucia home concert taken by concert attendee Craig.

Sangeet's first close-up meeting with a possum

Next tale in the Taro and Sangeet tour story, The Big Drive.