Dhruba Ghosh – Indian music masterclass at WMDC

During the last week of October 2009, sarangi player Dhruba Ghosh was in Rotterdam giving masterclasses to the Indian music students at the Rotterdam World Music Academy (RWMA), part of Codarts, University for the Arts. The classes took place at the World Music and Dance Centre (WMDC) in Coolhaven, where the world music and pop music lessons of Codarts are currently taught. On Thursday 29 October a workshop was given by Dhruba in which students were taught how to create ‘tihais’, short rhythmic patterns often used in Indian music improvisation which are repeated three times for special effect.

Dhruba Ghosh is a regular guest teacher in the Indian Music department of the RWMA, for vocal music, sarangi, other string instruments and all aspects of Indian music in performance. Born in 1957 in the legendary Ghosh family – father Nikhil Ghosh was a renowned tabla player, musicologist, and principal of his own school, Sangeet Mahabharati, in Mumbai, and uncle Pannalal Ghosh, famous flutist, brought the bansuri flute onto the north Indian classical stage – Dhruba learned vocal and tabla as a child and trained in sarangi from around the age of fourteen. He is now a top, highly respected performer of sarangi internationally and mainly divides his time between Belgium and India, where he has been appointed principal of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan music institute in Mumbai. Future plans have been proposed for an exchange so that Codarts students can study for one or two months at this institute as a part of their bachelor’s course in music.