SHUJAAT Husain Khan (with Federico Sanesi)
Dil

Fy 8176

885016817626
Felmay Records
India

 

Gifted with great vocal qualities and extraordinary interpretative skills, SHUJAAT HUSAIN KHAN centered his talent in studying and mastering gayaki-ang (a singing style where instruments tend to reproduce voice modalities) of which his latest work Dil is a great expression.

The first track, Raga Gujri Todi, in two parts Alap (introduction) and Gat (compositions) is a raga that Vilayat Khan, Shujaat’s father, loved to perform in private occasions, at home, often adding a note not included in the orthodox musical scale, the Ma komal. When Shujaat reached the adult age, his father asked him to write a composition on this raga. That’s how in Dil SHUJAAT HUSAIN KHAN presents us with his personal version of Raga Gujri ever recorded and live performed before. A breathtaking prayer unfolding among the notes of the sitar and tabla delightfully accompanied by his fine voice.
In the third track of the album Ek Prakar (A Lullaby), we find Shujaat in a very sweet mode. His voice cradles and cuddles us in an enveloping and poetic lullaby. A night caress that is a love chant. Love for the lover, or for the little creature in front of you that is about to fall asleep, but mostly for the Divinity source of all creatures.
…” Let me take to the land of dreams I will embrace you like a coat of stars…come”

SHUJAAT HUSAIN KHAN is the son of Ustad Vilayat Khan, universally renowned as one of the most important masters of sitar of the twentieth century. Born in 1960, started playing aged three, he is now at the top of his career that started long time ago. He lived in the towering artistic shadow of his father for years and started gathering his deserved successes after his father’s death in 2004. An extremely intense artistic activity brought him numerous prestigious international collaborations, as well as being nominated for the Grammy Award for Rain, the album published in 2005 with the Indo-Persian group Ghazal.
FEDERICO SANESI is accompanying him on the tabla as a confirmation that also European artists reached artistic maturity in the Indian classic music performance. Pupil of tabla Master Sankha Chatterjee, Federico Sanesi played for years together with Indian artists such as Hariprasad Chaurasia and Shahid Parvez as well as Westers like Dino Saluzzi, Paolo Fresu, Elena Ledda, John Taylor and Vincenzo Zitello.