Soul to Soul, a concert with a twist 

Together with Rasique DesiYUP organized the biggest Indian jugalbandi classical concert in 2017 with the legendary Padma Vibhusan Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. Our wish was to recreate the magic of the Call of The Valley albums produced by the masters Shiv-Hari. But in the last week before the concert we heard that Pandit Shivkumar Sharma was unable to perform for us due to serious health problems. We received a doctor’s report stating that Pandit Sharma was not allowed to travel abroad for a good six weeks. With only one week prior to the concert we only had two options; the first option was to cancel this concert and wait for the recovery of Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, but this matter was so fragile and the prospects weren’t looking that great that we decided to come up with a solid alternative. The second option was to request Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia to perform this jugalbandi concert with the son of Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, Rahul Sharma, since he learned to play santoor from his father. Now, this concert became an example of the strong guru-shisya-parampara within the Indian classical music tradition. Knowledge is passed down from one generation to the other. And in this concert Rahul Sharma was the only possible replacement for his father.

Luckily Pandit Chaurasia agreed to perform together with Rahul and he helped us to book him for this concert. We took a major risk by replacing Pandit Shivkumar Sharma with Rahul, but luckily the outcome of the concert was positive and was well received by the majority of our audience. There were a few unhappy people as well who weren’t pleased with the fact that we didn’t communicate beforehand about Pandit Shivkumar Sharma’s illness, but we had no other option. It was the wish of Pandit Chaurasia who said not to worry the audience before the concert. To make the audience understand how difficult this situation was for us we decided to broadcast a video message of Pandit Sharma, before the start of the concert. In this video Pandit Sharma stated his health issues and requested the audience to bless and support his son who came from India to replace him. We didn’t want to video to go viral on social media, therefore it was only played at the concert. Another decision that we took was not to promote the concert with the name of Pandit Shivkumar Sharma in the last few days, because that would have been dishonest, we only focussed on the production part of the concert. Because at the end of all this drama we still wanted to give our audience the best concert experience possible 25th of June 2017 in Zuiderstrandtheater in The Hague. 

Limited Edition Soul to Soul DVD

Soul to Soul –  Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia in Jugalbandi with Rahul Sharma, a long-awaited live-in-concert DVD, has arrived. Captured 25 June 2017 at the Zuiderstrandtheater in The Hague. Relive this 2-hours long extraordinary jugalbandi concert featuring Living legend Pandit Chaurasia (bansuri), Rahul Sharma (santoor), Bhavani Shankar (pakhawaj), Vijay Ghate (tabla), Rohini Sahajpal (tanpura).

Review of the Concert

More links related to this concert interviews and promo’s:
Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia: In Search of Love, Peace and Harmony
Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia In Search of Love, Peace and Harmony (video)
Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia second part of: In Search of Love, Peace and Harmony (video)
Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia Talks About Devotional Music
Sandip Bhattacharya concert Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia
VPRO Vrije Geluiden highlights concert: Soul to Soul
Concert Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia featured on Concert Zender
Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia interviewed by AmorFM
Shiv-Hari share the stage for the first time together in The Netherlands
The embodiment of Sarasvati and the Mother of the Maihar Gharana Annapurna Devi leaves behind her immense musical legacy
Creation of Something Meaningful

This concert was made possible thanks to our sponsors