Barcelona musician joins gypsy and Baul music

Kolkata :

He was born and brought up in Belgrade by his Bengali mother and Serbian father. He got his degrees, including a Masters, in Austria, where he spent eight-odd years. But with a name like Robindro, he could not escape music.

Barcelona Gipsy Klezmer Orchestra’s clarinet player-scholar Robindro Nikolic is in town, holding workshops and bringing the worlds of gypsies and bauls together.

“My mother, Manjula Mukherjee had gone to Europe with her parents who were diplomats based in Yugoslavia. She studied medicine, but later took up Ayurveda. She met my father, who is a Serbian, at Belgrade,” Robindro narrated in his accent.

He further explained what brought him to Kolkata for the first time, four years ago.

“In Switzerland in 2007, I was performing with Zubin Mehta when I met Pandit Tanmoy Bose, who was collaborating with Anushka Shankar. We exchanged numbers, spoke about music. He urged me to make my own music as I was part of a huge orchestra. He really inspired me. In 2010, I came to Kolkata, where Bose introduced me to many people — musicians like guitarist Bodhisattwa Ghosh with whom I jammed at Someplace Else, and the cultural organization Banglanatak. I was keen to research on music medicine and music therapy, so Bose’s wife, Bonnya, who was with ITC Sangeet Research Academy at the time, introduced me to their archive where I spent considerable time,” he told TOI on Wednesday.

“Many people think my name is Brazilian or Portuguese. But I tell them no, it’s Bengali,” he said.

When prodded on his association with Indian music, he said, “I have researched on the broad science of Indian ragas and music therapy in India. But this is the first time I’m having a musical exchange with Bengal folk musicians. We found many similarities between the folk forms of the two worlds. ‘Doina’, a Jewish folk form from East Europe, is very similar to Baul, as my fellow musicians pointed out. It’s about spirituality and not religion. I’m also keen on exploring the Bengal wind instruments.”

But Baul is not a “new love” for him, he said. “When I was little my mother would travel back home and get, among others, Baul music recordings for me.”

Singer Dipanwita Acharya, who was part of the workshop, said, “It was a wonderful experience. And I’m so happy to learn about ‘Doina’. So many similarities with our Baul music and the storyline of these music forms are the same globally.”

Percussionist Sandip Bag, who played ‘dubuka’, an instrument from Middle East, at the workshop, said the rhythms Robindro played were quite different, and this was a refreshing experience.

Arpan Thakur Chakraborty, a guitarist, added, “This was very helpful for me. I learnt a lot about scale variation and progression while playing ‘jazz manouche’ or gypsy jazz with him.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Kolkata / by Shounak Ghosal, TNN / September 25th, 2014

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