Baluji.com - Classical Reviews 2

North Indian Classical Musician, Composer & Educationalist

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Further Reviews

The Art Of The Indian Dilruba ARC

In a recent series from ARC Music, artists who are considered virtuosi in their specialist area have been recorded with minimal studio interference. The Art of Indian Dilruba-is an exciting excursion into the realm of Hindustani classical music. The Dilruba (robber of the heart) is a hybrid instrument, with a resonator like that of the sarangi and a neck similar to that of the sitar The four main playing strings are bowed, with a number of sympathetic strings running down the right side of the neck. Balui Shrivastav, a multi-instrumentalist gives a stunning performance. Ragas in Hindustani music are much more than a series of melodies, they are associated with definite periods of the day, night, seasons and natural phenomena. A series of five ragas incorporates secular, religious, and time specific compositions set a variety of talas (metres) played on tabla by Partho Mukherjee. Each piece is clearly recorded giving a full sound which captures the intimacy of improvisation which is so important in the North Indian Classical tradition.

Real Groove, New Zealand

The Art Of Dilruba

This superbly crafted recording takes the listener through the sequence of ragas ( which vary according to the hour of the day), providing an aural sampler of the dilruba’s repetoire. Because of the disc’s organisation, the music flows and evolves in a deeply satisfying fashion. Quite lovely.

Sing Out – USA

Live Performances

…virtuoso multi-instrumentalist Baluji Shrivastav-

Nick Baker, The Times

This Indian music maestro, heard at the Edinburgh Mela, plays sitar, surbahar (bass sitar) and dilruba (fretted fiddle). His musical eclecticism has taken him into bands including Massive Attack, as well as recordings with jazzers Andy Sheppard and Guy Barker. Here, with Vishnu Sahai on tabla, he makes beautifully accessible a selection of classical ragas. Norman Chalmers, Scotsman on Sunday, 16th September 2007

…played on a range of instruments by the excellent Baluji Shrivastav in a tradition which employs rhythm and tune as punctuation: feather light drumming and strumming erupting into rolls and surges at moments of dramatic significance-

Financial Times, Claire Armitstead.

Baluji Srivastav’s delicate accompaniment is a source of pure delight

Malcolm Hay, Time Out

Few instruments can be as insolent as the sitar and yet capture a poignancy that crosses all cultural divides-

Pat Ashworth, The Guardian

Musical instruments are reliably beautiful; where sounds are unfamiliar, glossed wood or curved brass can often allure an initiate. From this perspective, despite his work with Annie Lennox, Masive Attack and other high profile pop artists, it makes sense for Indian sitar player Baluji Shrivastav (pictured) to hold a concert entitled Sitar Visually, with his playing of the sitar and the tabla accompanied by a display of digital images. These clarify the differing moods of the ragas Shrivastav plays , which won’t be the first example of linking an ancient art with a modern one for the purposes of broadening the potential audience base. The fact that Shrivastav has been blind since infancy offers an alternative interpretation of the idea of musical vision.

Those familiar with his music don’t need the added benefits but, for newcomers, the combination of the outlandish instruments’ handsome grace and the manufactured fascination of the digital images prove an extra attraction to Shrivastav’s music-

Nina Caplan Metro Life

The action is richly counter pointed by master sitar player Baluji Shrivastav’s musical accompaniment with his own compositions-

Eric Braun, The Stage and Televison Today

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