Interview reprinted from Tempo Magazine of the Taos News
The true Guru-disciple relationship is one that most westerners are unfamiliar with, but for sitar master Peter van Gelder it is a life long commitment that he entered into 35 years ago when he became the disciple of India’s greatest sarod master Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, the man whom, according to van Gelder, Yehudi Menhuin has referred to as “the greatest musician in the world”.
On Friday, March 25, van Gelder and tabla master Uttam Chakraborty will be performing a concert of classical and folk music of India. The concert which will be held in the conference room at The Fechin Inn is presented by Prima Surya Productions(PSP), the local company that is devoted to presenting intimate concerts of world music.
Van Gelder, who has devoted over 35 years to study of the sitar and classical Indian music, and who is considered by many of his peers to be one of the two finest sitar players to emerge from the U.S. began his musical journey as a young child. “I recall attending church with my mother one Christmas when I was six and upon hearing the boys choir I had my first vision of heaven. With that experience I had the thought that heaven was created by music,” stated van Gelder in a recent phone interview.
Sharing more about his early years van Gelder spoke of how his parents had great appreciation for western classical music, blues and jazz, and encouraged their son to learn music. “When I was in the 5th grade they rented a clarinet for me and a year later they bought me a trumpet. It was the most beautiful thing, this shinny thing in a velvet lined case. I know now that it was a financial sacrifice for them, but they never pressured me to practice, nor to make music a career.” By the time van Gelder was in high school most of his energy was being directed towards music, and upon graduation he continued his music studies at Goddard College in vermont and later at the University of Wisconsin.
While the saxophone and jazz and improvisation had become the aspiring musician’s focus development in these areas lacked support for learning institutions that were still limited in the early sixties to courses in western classical music and composition. Hence, van Gelder found himself studying independently and listening to many of the great jazz artists of the time, with John Coltrane as his greatest source of inspiration. “I worked, and practiced music. Music was my only extracurricular activity,” declares van Gelder.
After college van Gelder moved to San Fransisco and became part of the burgeoning music scene. “In 1966 I was invited to play in a rock and roll band and I learned the bass to play in that band. It was a really exciting time then. You know,” van Gelder continues, “music was changing; It was changing from rhythm and blues and rockabilly and everything, to rock. And everybody was really inventing and inspiring one another.” The band that van Gelder was invited to play in was fronted by the then unknown Grace Slick (later of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship). “That band was made of her family; It was her husband and his brother, so it was the three Slicks and me, and that was The Great Society.” It was this band that first recorded the hallmark songs Someone To Love and White Rabbit ( on which a saxophone solo by van Gelder can be heard).
Explaining how Indian music entered his life van Gelder recalls that it was while working as a board engineer at KSFR when he first moved to San Fransisco. He explains, “Some of the commercials were for Indian imports and the background of the commercials was sitar and tabla music. Every time I heard the spots I’d say, ‘Wow’, and I couldn’t tell what was producing the sounds. It was totally mysterious to me. It sounded like they were weaving music, like a fabric, like a brocade of sound. But there were no credits so I couldn’t find out what it was.”
It was a couple of years later that van Gelder and his fellow band members began to learn about the music of India. “We heard that Ali Akbar Khan was scheduled to teach a summer course at Berkeley. Three hours a day, five days a week we would attend and then one day we ran out of money to pay the tuition.” Van Gelder recalls, “I was shocked when the school administration absolutely forbade us to return to class. I was desperate to get in because the music was developing stage by stage and if you missed a day I felt it would be like loosing a tooth or something. I felt that I would be missing something that was absolutely vital to me.”
Appealing to the Maestro with his plight van Gelder was informed that Khan, or Khansahib, as he is respectfully addressed, had no authority to override the University’s policy, but, that if van Gelder was serious about his studies he was welcome to attend the sarod master’s school in Calcutta where he would never be turned away for lack of money. So it was shortly thereafter that van Gelder and his wife and two young children set out on what became a two-month journey to India, riding trains and buses, and hitchhiking through Europe, the Middle East and finally India where the family spent the next three years while van Gelder attended the Ali Akbar College. Musing about the early years van Gelder says, “When I went to India I was very interested in the music of India, but, I really still didn’t think that I would become a musician of Indian music. I just wanted to learn more about it.”
While in India van Gelder began collaborating with other western musicians and upon returning to the U.S. formed a band called The Sadhu Brand, that played Indian pop tunes with a western influence. Van Gelder continued his studies at the Ali Akbar College of Indian Music(AACM) which was established in 1968 in Marin County, California with some generous backing from the famous Zen teacher, Alan Watts, and Don McCoy, “a millionaire who also helped to fund the Grateful Dead”, according to van Gelder. Shortly thereafter van Gelder became a formal disciple of Khansahib whose musical lineage is traced back to the Mogul emperor Akbar’s court musician Tansen.
Commenting on the Guru-disciple relationship van Gelder states, “Khansahib told me to consider it for a year before we had the ceremony. And when we did have the ceremony it was relatively simple. But, the responsibility for both the Guru and the disciple is great. For the Guru it not only involves properly imparting the knowledge of the technique and ragas, which are quite complex and subtle, but also becoming an advisor for all areas of the disciple’s life. For the disciple it is a great responsibility to be a conduit of the music, to keep the respect for the Guru’s family and lineage, socially, but, especially in how I play music. I must conduct myself in such a way that reflects credit to my teacher and carries on the tradition. In my younger years, in my cultural ignorance I committed many a faux pas, but, Khansahib was very understanding.”
Traditionally the Guru-disciple relationship within the realm of music was one that was exclusive to blood relations. But, Allauddin Khan, Khansahib’s father and Guru, was one of the first musicians to be accepted as a disciple into a musical lineage of which he had no blood connection, the great Seni Gharana (school of Tansen). And it was Allaudin Khan who began to teach “outsiders” in great numbers, thereby sharing the musical knowledge with others who had been formerly excluded, a practice which is now more common throughout India. One of the most remarkable things about Khansahib, according to van Gelder, is that “India’s greatest sarod master has chosen to sacrifice performance for teaching. He is the only great Indian maestro of this era who has chosen to do this.”
Within a short time of being accepted as a disciple van Gelder became a junior instructor and administrator at AACM and began performing ragas with other disciples. By this time I had no other interests,” states van Gelder, “and I didn’t do anything with western music anymore; we didn’t play the radio and we didn’t have TV so all I heard was Indian music, all day, every day. I realized that on some level, even if it was just basic, I would be able to represent the music...and it’s all I wanted to do.”
Eventually van Gelder became a senior instructor at AACM (a position that he still holds) and was also appointed to teach at the Alluadin School of Music in Canada in 1987 and invited to help establish the music department at the United World College. In 1988 he received a professional development grant and returned to India on a concert tour and also resumed studies with Khansahib’s sister, Annapurna Devi, who is a master of the sitar.
Since then van Gelder has toured in Europe, Hong Kong, Macau, Manilla, Fiji, Thailand, and in numerous cities throughout the U.S. and India. Though he states that to reach the level of virtuosity that his Guru has achieved is an unrealistic goal for a westerner who was introduced to Indian music relatively late in life, the fact that van Gelder has shared the stage with some of India’s finest musicians, including Shankar Gosh, Kushal Das, Zakir Hussain Tanmoy Bose, and Ravi Shankar bears witness to his degree of accomplishment. In responding to a question about how he is regarded by his peers van Gelder humbly redirects the focus to the music and his Guru stating, “The thing that I really try to emphasize is keeping the purity of the ragas because it’s easy to blend one in to another if you don’t pay attention to the subtle distinctions that there are form one raga to another. Then the whole feeling of the raga will be lost because there’s something indescribable about where that energy comes form that makes the raga really come to life. That’s what Khansahib has really emphasized. He’s taught us hundreds and hundreds of ragas. Many of the ragas are very similar and you don’t want to step on the toes of one raga while playing another; it would be insulting...So, I think, as far as people think of me, I hope that they understand that I’m really working for that more than trying to show my virtuosity, because my virtuosity can’t be on the level of the virtuosity that I’ve seen, that would take life times, or at least learning from the age of three, and it being your whole life.”
Accompanying van Gelder at the upcoming concert will be Sri Uttam Chakraborty, one of the leading torchbearers of the new generation of tabla players of India. Possibly the foremost disciple of his illustrious Guru Pandit Swapan Chowdhury (who is tabla Maestro at AACM) Chakraborty is also a senior instructor at AACM and has a number of accomplished disciples of his own in India.
Chakraborty received his first training in tabla at the age of eight from his father, Suril Chakraborty and then from his uncle, Kebol Chakraborty. The younger Chakraborty has toured extensively in India and internationally, accompanying many of India’s eminent musicians. In addition to his position at AACM he is also affiliated with All India Radio and Calcutta Television.
The March 25th concert is particularly significant for PSP. In explaining why, PSP’s director, Rima Ralff states, “As a student of the sitar I went to Marin County in the fall of ‘03 to have a lesson with Peter at which time he asked if I would arrange some concerts for him in New Mexico. It was eleven months ago that Peter performed in Taos and Santa Fe, and it was these concerts that spawned Prima Surya(First Sun) Productions which went on to present five other ensembles over the past year. So, here we are, culminating one year of performances with a concert of Peter’s. He’s an exceptional musician and his musical journey is quite extraordinary. I’m very honored to be presenting him again and to be studying with him, and also to be presenting, for the first time in New Mexico one of India’s great young tabla artists.
In closing, van Gelder, who has worked as a plumber, electrician and carpenter to “pay the bills” shared, “Whatever I’ve done in music I’ve never once thought of what to do to be a professional musician. You know, I mean I certainly wouldn’t have picked the sitar.”
Peter van Gelder lives in Sonoma County, California and is available for concerts, workshops and individual lessons. | Contact |
