World renowned flautist and music composer, Wouter Kellerman performs with his band at Jodhpur RIFF 2015. By Devi Singh
His affair with the flute started at the age of 10 with a visit to a symphony concert in Johannesburg. Out of all the instruments there, he chose to pick the flute. “I liked the idea of speaking and singing and the flute was somewhere between the both. Playing a flute everyday is like meditation to me,” said Kellerman.
The third night of Jodhpur RIFF 2015 saw Grammy award winner Wouter Kellerman world renowned flautist collaborating with Rajasthani musicians. He is known for the mammoth collaboration with Indian composer and producer Ricky Kej for the album, Winds of Samsara.
The project started out as a tribute to Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, with just two songs recorded, but it ended up being a big collaboration between South Africa and India. “I met Ricky online as we both are part of the Grammy process. So when we heard each other’s sample of music, we absolutely loved it. He sent me a track and asked me if I could add flute to it and that’s how we got together,” said Kellerman.
With two South African Music Awards to his credentials which are the South African version of the Grammys, Kellerman has focused his attention on World and Roots music, exploring the versatility of the instrument and fusing classical and contemporary sounds.
Talking about his RIFF experience, he said, “I had met Divya Bhatia at Australia World Music Expo quite a number of times where we used to discuss the festival and this year we finally came. We didn’t know what we were really going to perform. But when we heard the rajasthani musicians, we were blown away. Things followed in a very natural and smooth manner between us. I experimented with different things which came out pretty good. My whole band was interested in exploring music across the world, so we didn’t want to change what the rajasthani musicians did.”
RIFF highlights
In addition to the performances held at Jodhpur, RIFF plans to tour Brian Molley Quartet in Delhi at Taj Mahal Hotel and later in Kolkata and Bengaluru. RIFF apart from the concerts, also had an interesting array of interactive sessions like how the next generation of the traditional musicians, the manganiyars and the langas or even camel herding communities like Raika are holding up to their legacy.
The overall focus of this year’s RIFF was on reggae and jazz with the likes of Yosi Fine, Brian Molley, Papa Julius, Wouter Kellerman. Other highlights of this year’s edition included an evening of sensual Thumri by Suchismita Das, a classical and contemporary musician from Kolkata, where the RIFF tried to bring in some of the elements from the east India.
At the recently concluded Rajasthan International Folk Festival held every year in Jodhpur here’s a low-down on the performances which stole the show.
Parveen Sabrina Khan
The young and stupendously talented Indo-French beauty, Parveen enchanted everyone with her mellifluous voice with a string of maand performances. A vocal style prevalent across north India, Maand is a famous singing style in Rajasthan. Accompanied by her father Hameed Khan Kawa who played tabla and Ghewar Khan Manganiyar on Kamaicha, the quintessential manganiyar instrument, the trio presented a string of maand and a slew of classical numbers like Dola maaru, and the fabled Kesariya balam among others. Siraj Kawa, Parveen’s uncle later joined Parveen who sang and played harmonium.
Emilia lajunen and Suvi Oskala
The peculiar duo from Finland stunned the audience with their never seen before performance. They churned out tunes from the Finnish folk like polka, waltz. Emilia and Suvi’s repertoire consisted mainly of Finnish contemporary and traditional folk tunes. Another fact which made the duo’s performance unique was the introduction of the five string fiddle as one of the new instruments this year at Jodhpur RIFF. A five string violin is a versatile variant of violin with an extra string tuned to a pitch below the violin’s usual range which excels in musical styles that allow for improvisation.
Shooglenifty
The Scottish group with the dhol drummers of Rajasthan was the one performance which kept people craving for encore. The high octane Shooglenifty-Rajasthani collaboration which included instruments like mandolin, drums, guitar, dhol, khartal, et al. has had performances in Scotland before. Credited with being the originators of ‘acid-croft’ — a blend of Celtic traditional music and dance grooves Shooglenifty are legends of the folk revival scene in Scotland. Chanan, Sattar and Chhote Manganiyar played the traditional Manganiyar Dhol which made people break into dance with boundless energy.
Wouter Kellerman
Wouter Kellerman Band comprised of South African musicians with bass, drums, and African percussion. The 2015 Grammy winner for the album Winds of Samsara collaborated with an Indian composer Ricky Kej. The world renowned flautist known for his amalgam of African percussions with jazz and blues collaborated with Rajasthani musicians. His natural transitions of experimentation with the Rajasthani musicians enthralled everyone.
Yossi Fine
Yossi Fine’s collaboration with Kheta Manganiyar onkhartal and Feroze Manganiyar on dholak among other Rajasthani musicians held the audience captivated. The Grammy winner juxtaposed deep bass lines with the local musicians. With the kind of energy, the act had it didn’t seem he had practiced only three days ago with the manganiyars. As Fine said post performance, being oblivious about the instruments or the local musicians actually helped him in stunning improvisation. Fine and Feroze later shared the stage for Rustle as well.
Desert lounge
Making your way through a dusty terrain in pitch darkness to reach Rao Jodha Park at dead of the night with some people reluctant to walk after the after hour revelry you seem to lose enthusiasm too. But then you start hearing distant deep throated voices of manganiyars which makes the darkness glow. And as you reach the spot and find a group of men in white, seated in the middle you lose yourself in the sheer grandeur of the entire backdrop with the impressive fort and just the moon as a source of light. This is one performance you would want to come back for sure.
Dawn with Wouter Kellerman
With darkness being taken over by early rays of sun Wouter Kellerman, Dilshad Khan and Mahesh Vinayakram enraptured everyone in the wee hours with sounds of the flute and Carnatic vocals by Vinayakram and the lilting and soul stirring strains of the Sarangi. Jodhpur RIFF gave a slice of its first dawn collaboration between three traditions of classical music, western, north Indian and south Indian classical music.