Free Concert To Feature Indian Classical Music And Grammy-Nominated Flutist
Indian classical music will be featured in a concert by Maestro Shashank Subramanyam and his troupe on Friday, April 12, at 6 p.m. in Geren Auditorium, Langford B.
The free Indian Flute Concert is hosted by the Performance Studies program in the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts, and the Texas A&M Chapter of the Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth, known as SPICMACAY.
The concert will feature a performance by Subramanyam, a Grammy-nominated flutist from India. He will be accompanied by Parupalli Phalgun on mridangam and B.U. Ganesh Prasad on violin, both from India.
The connection that led to the concert began through Srikar Satish, treasurer for SPICMACAY and a junior International Studies and Political Science student, who took two Performance Studies courses taught by Dr. Matthew Campbell and Dr. Will Connor.
The professors co-sponsored a performance by SPICMACAY during a First Friday concert in Downtown Bryan at Grand Stafford Theater on March 1. The following day, they provided an event space for SPICMACAY to co-host a festival at the Harrington Education Center Classroom titled “Thyagaraja Aradhana,” where 25 of their members performed.
Campbell said it was rewarding to be able to help these SPICMACAY events.
“To create an art school and an art space, you have to have people performing the arts,” Campbell said. “If we are trying to attract students to make music or the arts as a life career, we need to have that environment. I also firmly believe that we want students to learn the intrinsic importance and value of art in the human experience. It is not an extrinsic thing; it is not something extra — it is something that allows civilization to progress and allows people to have a full lived experience.”
Satish said he is grateful to Campbell and Connor, noting they are trying to bring top artists from different genres to Texas A&M, while providing platforms for students and community members to perform. SPICMACAY has about 50 active members in the community who dance, sing and play a range of instruments in Indian classical, North and South Indian style.
Satish has been playing the flute for eight years under the guidance of his guru, Subramanyam, who is a top flute artist in India, he said. Satish said Subramanyam has received such honors as the “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government in 2022; the Sangeet Natak Akademi’s senior award from the president of India in 2017; and city proclamation awards from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Memphis, Tennessee.
Satish said as he was growing up in College Station, he would have to travel out of town for performance opportunities.
“The more you perform or listen to great artists, the better you are going to get,” he said. “So we would have to drive to Houston, Austin or Dallas to get an opportunity to perform. But our town has grown so much since then. I love that now we can provide a platform for people from our Bryan-College Station and Aggie community to learn, practice and perform.”
Indian classical music is almost entirely improvisational, Satisha said, noting that “no one will play them the same way because they are not the same notes.”
“It is much more open and creative to your own interpretation,” he said. “There are virtually no boundaries.”
Campbell said he hopes Satish and his grand maestro are able to continue working together.
“Playing the flute is something Srikar has really dived into, and he is incredibly passionate about it,” Campbell said. “I hope Srikar and his grand maestro are able to interact in ways that a live public concert allows you to, which isn’t something you are always able to do with your mentor.”
Photo: Sri Hari Haran, center, a member of the Texas A&M Chapter of the Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth, performs with two Dallas performers: Sindhu Gudimella and Sri Umamahesh Iyer, during “Thyagaraja Aradhana” on March 2 in Harrington Education Center Classroom. Photo by Uma Kumar.
