Ustad Nishat Khan performs in MITHAS’s first event of 2019

GEETHA PATIL
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts: MIT Heritage of the Arts of South Asia, (MITHAS), Cambridge launched its 2019 Spring Season with the first program by a Hindustani sitar maestro Ustad Nishat Khan at Kresge Auditorium March 23, which was attended by hundreds of Indian classical music lovers.
This program was followed by the release of Juju Productions’ video album Jaan Meri with a live performance by the Indian-American singer Anuradha Palakurthi.

Ustad Nishat Khan is the son and disciple of Ustad Imrat Khan, the nephew of the late Ustad Vilayat Khan. He is a star of one of the the oldest gharanas of Hindustani music and a top sitar player in the world who transcends musical barriers with his provocative expressions and spellbinding technical mastery.

In the program, Ustad Nishat Khan played according to the mood of the evening. He played Rag Desi and a Holi composition along with other famous ragas and compositions and entertained the music lovers with his improvisation.

Nitin Mitta, a well-known tabla player, accompanied Ustad Nishat Khan on the stage and impressed the audiences with his expert performance. He is an accomplished and distinctive tabla player with a reputation for technical virtuosity, clarity of tone, and sensitivity to melodic nuances. He has performed with some of India’s finest musicians and has toured throughout the world.

After the event, Manisha Jain, the CEO of Juju Productions, announced the release of Jaan Meri, a music video album .She said that Juju Productions, LLC, is a Boston-based music and video production company and Jaan Meri featured the talents of 70 musicians and over 450 people in the production of the music videos filmed by directors and teams in locations spanning the globe – from Hollywood in Los Angeles to Mumbai in India to Baku in Azerbaijan.

Jain said that Anuradha Palakurthi recently launched her new project “Music Room” with veteran Bollywood singer and composer Bappi Lahiri and his son Bappa Lahiri on Zee TV Americas and performed in many live music concerts with Bollywood singers across the US. Palakurthi’s father and mother-in-law released the video album standing in the midst of lyricists, musicians, actors, directors, producers and other family members and friends.
Ustad Nishat Khan said that the video album consists of six songs composed by him on a range of styles and produced and sung by Palakurthi. The lyrics were penned by Mehboob Kotwal, Manoj Yadav, Bullesha and Boston’s own evocative poetess, Sunayana Kachroo. Before playing each song, Palakurthi, and Ustad Nishat Khan not only provided the introduction of each song of the album, but also talked about the details and challenges they faced while filming those songs and answered questions asked by the audiences.
Jain requested all the people involved in the production of the video album to come up on the stage and thanked everyone of them. She also thanked the audience for coming and supporting the program.