LearnQuest Academy of Music is pleased to announce the Conference 2009, its fourth annual Music Conference, featuring four days of Indian Classical music, Indian-Western fusion, and film. The conference is cosponsored by MITHAS. One of the MITHAS events in the Spring 09 concert series is a two-hour documentary film on Hindustani music, Raga Unveiled produced by Geeta Desai, which will be a part of Conference 2009. As in the years past, the LearnQuest Conference, which will again be held at the beautiful Fine Arts Center of Regis College in Weston MA, will offer a unique and comprehensive array of Masters from both the Hindustani (North Indian) and Carnatic (South Indian) classical traditions. It is noteworthy that the featuring of artists in a multi-day music festival from “both” of these time-honored and long-standing traditions is unique not only in the USA, but, is indeed very rare even in Mother India. It has been one of the expressed purposes of the LearnQuest Music Conference series to provide a showcase for exponents from both traditions under the same umbrella, and also to provide aficionados of both traditions the opportunity to enjoy and learn about music, which they might otherwise not be exposed to. By the same token, the LearnQuest mission in presenting such a varied array of music has always been to afford American and other “western” audiences with a concentrated dose of some of the most melodic, rhythmically lively, and profound sampling of our common World’s music and art.

This year’s music festival, to be held on April 5, 10, 11, and 12, is no exception in this regard. As previous conferences have offered star artists such as flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia, Carnatic vocalist Aruna Sairam, slide guitar master Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Hindustani vocalists Rashid Khan and Prabha Atre, and sitar master Shahid Parvez, this year’s star artists include the great violin Maestro M. S. Gopalakrishnan, a unique musician of our time who has equal mastery over both Hindustani and Carnatic music. He truly represents the spirit of LearnQuest Music Conference. Other star artists featured this year are Hindustani vocalists Padma Talwalkar and Arati Ankalikar, Carnatic vocalist T. M. Krishna, Hindustani violinist Kala Ramnath and many others, such as Ali Ahmed Hussain, a foremost master of the shenai, a unique double-reed instrument whose wailing and delicate tones are most expressive. Also featured this year, is the Carnatic Pancha Vadya Kutchery led by Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, a special all-women Violin-Veena-Flute ensemble.  

Indeed, it is in the nature of both the Hindustani and Carnatic traditions to uniquely combine a rather strict adherence to musical grammar, syntax, and performance tradition, with a free and imaginative interpretation within the bright lines, thereby calling upon an artist’s special and unique abilities to distinguish him or herself. It is this feature of the music that should be of particular interest to those Western music lovers who have come to appreciate the interpretive genius of their own traditions, be it “Classical”, “Country”, “Jazz”, or “Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

Thus, LearnQuest Academy has had a multi-faceted mission in presenting its Conference series, now in its fourth year running: A holistic and global view of the vast ocean that is the great traditional music of India; to offer, in a concentrated dose, an experience of the varied, teeming, and ever-evolving creativity that is evident in the artistry of India’s leading exponents; and to offer an opportunity for both the connoisseur and the novice, not to mention Greater Boston and New England’s own thriving musical and artistic community, to take a long and refreshing drink at the well of the pure and profound beauty that Indian classical music is an expression of, and thereby a testament to the enduring good that mankind is capable of.

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For further information, visit: http://www.learnquest.org/conference2009

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