Saturday, September 30, 2000, 
Budhaditya Mukherjee (Sitar)
with
Abhijit Banerjee (Tabla)
7:00 pm
Venue:
The Saint Paul Student Center Theater,
University of Minnesota, Saint Paul campus
About the artists:
Budhaditya Mukherjee is acknowledged both in India and abroad as one of the finest performers on the Sitar, easily the best known of all Indian string instruments. Today, alongside Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan, Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee is considered India’s topmost Sitarist. He is undoubtedly the most widely recognized Sitarist of his generation, renowned above all, for his tremendous control of meend, the technique of pulling the main melody string of the Sitar laterally across the instrument’s frets to vary the pitch. This technique allows a wide range of effects from the continuous sliding between notes to the most delicate oscillations on a single note, and effectively allows the Sitarist to imitate closely the ways in which voice is used in Indian music. Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee specializes in this Gayaki (vocal) style of music on the Sitar and displays a tremendous variety of meend patterns. As a young lad of five, Budhaditya began his grooming under his illustrious father Pandit Bimlendu Mukherjee, a doyen of the famous Imdadkhani Gharana of Sitar. Though a first class first graduate in Metallurgical Engineering, he opted for Sitar as a career due to his intense desire for furthering the art. He has received numerous awards and honors within India and abroad. Budhaditya was the first recipient of the Ustad Allauddin Khan Fellowship and the first instrumentalist to be awarded the Kumar Gandharva Award. He has been voted the "Outstanding Person of the Year" in 1979 by the National Jaycee’s and the "Outstanding Musician of the Year" award by the Government of West Bengal in 1979. Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee has been privileged to represent India in numerous international festivals. Over the last couple of decades he has given hundreds of concerts all around the world. On June 30, 1990 Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee created history by becoming the first ever musician to perform in the "House of Commons", London.
Abhijit Banerjee started learning Tabla at a very tender age from Sri Tushar Kanti Bose, later from Sri Manik Pal and finally came under the tutelage of Pandit Gyan Prakash Ghosh. As a child he won many music competitions of national repute. Besides Tabla he has had training in vocal music and violin. Abhijit is now a regular performer at all the major music conferences all over India and overseas. Besides accompanying all the major artistes of India, both in the North Indian and South Indian traditions, he has had the privilege of presenting himself as a solo performer in many music conferences in India and abroad. He has toured extensively all over the world and has also performed with jazz musicians and groups in New York. Abhijit has conducted many seminars on Indian classical music at universities in U.S.A., Japan, England and Spain. Abhijit has recorded many CDs with many reputed companies accompanying almost all the major artists in Indian classical music today, as well as many well-known Jazz musicians. He has also recorded Tabla solo CDs. Abhijit has composed music for TV serials and short films of which THE TRAILS - a film on Calcutta - got the National Award and was invited for the film festivals in Amsterdam and Munich. Abhijit has the privilege of representing India in the World Festival of Music held in Granada, Spain. In his academic life he is a graduate in English and a postgraduate in Journalism.
© Copyright 2001 Indian Music Society of Minnesota