Life Is Music: ‘A Sitar is like a successful woman’, says Purbayan Chatterjee

New Delhi: A musical initiative- Life Is Music- brings together musicians to rejuvenate your souls.

Master percussionist Taufiq Qureshi along with Louiz Banks and Purbayan Chatterjee launched the musical extravaganza on Monday 15th June 2015.

As we are eager to know more about the initiative– Life Is Music – let's know what one of the legends- Purbayan Chatterjee has to say about his memorable performances, his wishes and much more.

In a quick and candid interview, ace Sitar player Purbayan Chatterjee tells Yoshita Sengupta about his most-memorable performance, artists he wishes to collaborate with and what emotions music brings out in him.

Middle of the week, after a 13-hour shoot schedule, well post-midnight, Purbayan Chatterjee is as charged up as he was when he came on to the sets. Sitting in his vanity van, he’s as much in command of his vocabulary and diction as he was of his DWO, “the doppelganger of the Sitar” that he, conceptualized and designed and that he plays with utmost finesse.

Excerpts from the interview;

Which is your dream performance venue?

Someday, I’d love to play at the Colosseum in Rome; an open air concert, shot by helicopters.

An artist you’d like to collaborate with?

Pat Metheny (Patrick Bruce, an American Jazz Guitarist and composer). He’s a legendary Guitar player. I’d love to play with him at some point. We’ve been in touch; I’ve had the privilege of visiting him in his home in New York, where he even let me play his electric Sitar, which is actually a Guitar that he used in a famous song of his. The song is, in fact one of my favorites. It’s called Last Train Home from his album Still Life (Talking).

Your most-memorable performance?

It’ll have to be the one where I performed with Zakir Bhai (Ustad Zakir Hussain) for the first time. It was in 2007 at an auditorium called Kala Mandir. For me, it was surreal; probably because I didn’t believe that I was performing with him. Even the first 15-20 minutes after being with him on stage, I couldn’t believe that it was happening.

Any memories from that performance? Something he said, perhaps?

I remember just before going on stage he took me aside and said, ‘Ek cheez yaad rakhna (Remember one thing), my kurtas may be slightly better ironed and may be slightly more expensive, but I’m just a Tabla player. Play like you play every day.” He’s been a profound influence on me and on a lot of others. Once he also told me, ‘There might be five Sitar players on stage but there’ll always be place for one more. If you’re good enough, you’ll make it.’

The most difficult composition that you’d one day like to perfect?

There are multiple, actually. I love listening to Jazz music and compositions by some composers like John McLaughlin and Chick Corea. I’m a lot into chromatic solos. I’d love to crack some of the compositions that Chick Corea and his five-piece band made in the past.

If you had to associate one emotion with music, what would it be?

Music is associated with the Navrasa. There’s sringaar, there’s bhakti, there’s heroism. But, the emotion that comes to my mind first is surrender. What genre you play, doesn’t matter. Even a rebellious rocker while playing surrenders to a greater emotion, to a greater need to express himself, to a force.

What’s the one emotion you associate with the Sitar?

I don’t know about the emotion but people associate a very graceful, feminine image with the Sitar; perhaps because Goddess Saraswati plays it. But for me, the Sitar is as male as it can get. It’s an instrument with a lot of allure. Actually, the Sitar for me is like a confident, successful woman, who can express herself just the way she wants; as softly, as confidently or as authoritatively.