New Delhi: Multiple award-winning musician Ricky Kej says Indian classical musicians continue to shine on the global stage and receive accolades, but people domestically do not appreciate their achievements.
Cage, a three-time Grammy Award winner, said Western audiences admire Indian classical artistes who have “broken cultural barriers”, but people in India are generally ignorant about their work and achievements.
“I believe Indian classical musicians have been receiving worldwide acclaim for a long time. It’s just that we don’t appreciate them the way Western audiences do. If you look at a person like Pandit Ravi Shankar, he has broken cultural barriers and has collaborated with some of the top musicians around the world,” Cage told PTI.
He said, “He spread Indian classical music across the world, but if you talk to anyone in India and ask them to name one song or album of Pandit Ravi Shankar, no one will be able to tell. It is really sad that we in India are not appreciating our traditional art forms while the western audience is appreciating it.”
Cage said that concerts of Bollywood musicians are attended by the Indian diaspora but this is not the case with classical artistes.
“Classical musicians have broken cultural barriers and reached out to people who are not of Indian origin. I believe Indian music is under-appreciated.”
He said, “Even the Grammy Awards – whoever has won the Grammy Awards has been an Indian classical musician or someone who has been a traditional Indian musician. So, I believe that classical music needs to be encouraged more in our own country.”
Kej, 43, recently announced a new version of the national anthem “Jana Gana Mana”, which will be available to audiences worldwide on August 14.
The new offerings include performances by music maestros such as Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Rakesh Chaurasia, Rahul Sharma, Amaan and Ayan; Sheikh Mehboob Subhani and Kalishabi Mehboob and Giridhar Udupa.
The national anthem also featured around 14,000 students of the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, who helped Cage create the Guinness World Record.
When asked about his experience of working with flautist Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Cage said that he has been a fan of his music since childhood.
“Working with him was an incredible experience because I grew up listening to him and going to his concerts. He’s basically one of the greatest musicians to have ever lived on our planet.
“When he came to the studio, I remember touching his feet and taking his blessings.”
Cage said though he performs his own compositions in concerts, he loves giving new renditions of Indian folk songs.
“I have done this for a lot of folk songs. The other group I love working with are tribal singers and tribal musicians in India. I have done a lot of collaborations with tribal musicians in Araku Valley, North Karnataka and the Northeast,” he said.
Cage recently made headlines when he complained on social media last week that Air India had downgraded his business class ticket for a Mumbai-Bengaluru flight. At the time, the airline had said that the plane had been converted to a full economy configuration, apologising for the inconvenience caused to all passengers and that it had initiated the refund process.
The musician said he wanted to share his experience to make people aware of such incidents.
He said, “All I would say is that sometimes when you feel there is injustice happening or you don’t want someone else to go through what you have gone through, it’s important to speak out about such things. Sometimes it’s important to tweet about these things, so that’s what I did.”
This article is generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.
