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Executive Producer: Diane & Craig Martin

Aditya Prakash: Karnatik Roots

Our friend Cheryl McEnaney introduced us to Aditya Prakash a few years ago.  Cheryl served as head of strategic marketing for Real World Records in North America and she knew of our deep love of classical Indian music at Yarlung Records.  Aditya was born in Los Angeles and grew up in India and the United States, but with his busy international concert schedule he is rarely home in Tamil Nadu or California for long periods.  Crossover and Global music fans may know Aditya best from his jazz-infused Karnatik blend on his Aditya Prakash Ensemble releases such as Diaspora Kid or from his concerts on National Public Radio, or tours in Europe, the Near East and Asia as the vocalist with choreographer Akram Khan and musicians Pandit Ravi Shankar, Karsh Kale, Anoushka Shankar and Tigran Hamasyan.  

But as adventurous and “crossover” as Aditya’s successes may be, they have always been firmly anchored in the classical Karnatik musical tradition of South India.  Initially, Aditya suggested Yarlung work with him and his ensemble in the jazz and cross-over Global music genres, but by the end of our first conversation, Aditya confessed that his greatest desire was to honor and further explore the classical tradition with a purely acoustic recording focusing on some of his favorite ragas. I asked Aditya to compose a new work for us as well and he graciously agreed Executive producers Diane and Craig Martin and Aditya and I discussed where we should record this Karnatik debut album with Aditya, and we initially planned to record in Chennai.  To our chagrin, we learned from Aditya and from our friend Ricky Kej that most of the concert halls in India are designed for light or heavy amplification, such that the natural acoustics Yarlung prizes would be difficult to achieve.  Aditya had only worked in a “modern multi-mic” recording environment before, and for this album Aditya wanted the real Yarlung sound.  Thanks to Aaron Egigian, we were able to make this recording using the beautiful natural acoustics in Samueli Theater at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa on August 1st, 2022.  Aditya and musicians gave a live concert with this same repertoire in the hall on July 31st.  Craig and Diane joined us for the sessions in Costa Mesa on August 1st instead of flying to India with us.  They knew we had recorded Men of Dharamsala in India several years ago, and wanted to make the return trip with us.  So we shall plan for a second recording in India in the future.  

Before discussing the music, I wanted to explain something about our title and the words “Karnatik Roots.”  These ragas express Aditya’s roots as “learned at the feet” of his many illustrious gurus.  These are not the roots of the Karnatik tradition in general.  For listeners deeply interested in the history of Karnatik music, Adita recommends T. M. Krishna’s book A Southern Music: The Karnatik Story published by Harpers in 2013.  To Global Music lovers familiar with today’s greatest artists, our recording may sound ancient and archaic, traditionalist to a fault.  But to an arch traditionalist, Aditya’s recording may sound modern and experimental, with Karnatik “flavor.”  Traditional as his training may be, Aditya makes no particular claim to authenticity in this recording.  And as his guru Mr. Krishna elaborates in A Southern Music, the static lineage of Karnatik music over thousands of years turns out to be a myth.  As Aditya explained to me, “The notion that Karnatik music is ancient in a linear fashion – staying rooted and connected in sound and content over thousands of years – and that it is our job as practitioners today to maintain this line of purity and untainted tradition is a problematic one that overlooks and over-simplifies the deep transformation and evolution of Karnatik music over time. My teacher asked and urged me ‘What is Karnatik music to you?’ then continued urging me to ‘remove all the external paraphernalia and structural rules, and find out what Karnatik music means to you there,’ he said, pointing at my heart, not my head. The Karnatik concert as practiced today is a very structured entity, in which lyrically dense compositions are the main focus, while improvisation occurs in the spaces between the compositions and in subtle ways during the composition itself. Although this practice is today considered a ‘traditional’ Karnatik concert, it is relatively new in the larger history of Karnatik music.  So let us explore this tradition together and pay attention to the ways in which our hearts respond more than worrying about this too much in our heads.”

Aditya and musicians perform seven ragas for you on this album.  A raga is a melody (a collection of pitches), sometimes ancient, which often comes with a traditionally associated mood or temperament, and sometimes with a time of day for optimum performance.    With a wink in his eye and mock professorial posture, Aditya clarified that a “raga is a melodic entity, a song, with a phraseology that has marinated over time and been defined through existing compositions and the legendary practitioners of the form who have given the raga a distinct identity through their compositions and improvisations.”  But then Aditya grinned and admitted that to him, “a raga is a personality, a living being, a friend or partner that I must become intimate with in order to freely enter its world and even begin to explore it.” No wonder some of these ragas have been celebrated for generations.  Diane and Craig and I express our sincere appreciation to Aditya Prakash for his magnificent voice and leadership, to Kamalakiran Vinjamuri on violin, to Rajna Swaminathan on mridangam (South Indian drum) and to Vini Sundaram playing acoustic tambura, or drone. 

Fellow recording engineer and equipment designer Arian Jansen and I used SonoruS Holographic Imaging technology in the analog domain to refine the stereo image, Yarlung’s SonoruS ATR12 to record analog tape, the Merging Technologies HAPI to record 256fs DSD in stereo and surround sound and the SonoruS ADC to record PCM.  We used our friend Ted Ancona’s AKG C24 microphone previously owned by Frank Sinatra, and vacuum tube microphone amplification by Yarlung executive producer and designer Elliot Midwood.  Our hearty thanks to executive producers Craig and Diane Martin for underwriting and inspiring this album. 

–Bob Attiyeh, producer

Repertoire:

Jayanatasena
Hamsadwani
Shifting Sa
Kiravani
Brindavani, Khamas (Thillana)
Ragamalika, Brindavana Saranga
Natabhairavi

Executive Producers: Diane and Craig Martin
Recording Engineers: Bob Attiyeh and Arian Jansen
Mastering Engineers: Steve Hoffman, Arian Jansen and Bob Attiyeh
Microphone Preamplification: Elliot Midwood
AKG C24 microphone: Ancona Audio
Album cover photography: Sushma Soma
Tray image courtesy Miguel Estrada

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