*A reminder of my series on north Indian raga!!!*
with some highlights on my YouTube channel

The depth of the art of dhrupad singing never fails to entrance me—from the Dagar lineage through to Uday Bhalwalkar, whom I was blessed to hear this weekend in a recital at the Bhavan Centre in west London.

Through the slow, lengthy exposition of the alap, one hangs on every inflection, all the nuances of timbre, as Udayji expounds the pitch relationships—eventful, constantly creative, with a richly calibrated structure. Without neglecting the changing social context, one is drawn back to Hazrat Inayat Khan‘s 1921 book The mysticism and sound of music. The previous day Udayji led a workshop in which he reminded us of the power of singing as a spiritual discipline.

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Perhaps through some imponderable quirk of algorithm, the only widely-viewed post in my raga series is Bhairav–Bhairavi. All the posts are worth consulting, but if any deserve promoting in particular, for me it has to be the one on Yaman Kalyan.

As I marvel at the variety of solo singing styles around the world, dhrupad has a unique aura. For me, Udayji ranks alongside Billie Holiday and Mark Padmore.

Click here for more dhrupad in the UK. For more from the Bhavan, see Indian and world fiddles, Learning raga at the Bhavan, and Bhairav to Bhairavi at Bhavan. Cf. Voices of the world, and A playlist of songs.