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Indian musician and composer Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, the foremost representative of the santoor, a 100-stringed instrument similar to a hammered santur, died Tuesday at his home in Mumbai. He was 84 years old.
Indian news reports said the cause was cardiac arrest.
During a career spanning almost seven decades, Mr. Sharma became the first musician to bring Santoor to the world stage, at concerts and recitals in India and elsewhere.
Before Mr. Sharma started playing santoor, he was little known outside of Kashmir. Even there it was only used to play Sufiana Mausiqi, a Kashmiri classical music genre of Persian, Central Asian, and Indian origin.
The santoor, a trapezoidal wooden instrument whose strings extend over 25 wooden bridges, is played with thin wooden mallets. Unlike the sitar, sarod, or sarangi, which are string instruments traditionally used in Hindustani classical music, in santoorda it is difficult to sustain notes and transition from one note to another, or from one note to another, which is essential for the Hindustani musical tradition.
This may be one reason why it took so many years for Mr. Sharma to become known for his art.
At the start of his career, purists and critics alike mocked Santoor’s staccato sound, and many urged Mr Sharma to switch to another instrument. Instead, he spent years redesigning the santoor to allow it to play more notes per octave, making it better suited to the complex ragas, the melodic framework of Hindustani music.
Mr. Sharma, “My story is different from that of other classical musicians” said The Times of India in 2002. “While they had to prove their courage, their talent, their caliber, I had to prove the worth of my instrument. I had to fight for it.”
He released several albums, starting with “Call of the Valley” (1967) collaborating with famous flutist Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia and guitarist Brij Bhushan Kabra.
Mr. Chaurasia and Mr. Sharma were close friends and often collaborators. Together they composed music for several successful Bollywood films in the 1980s and 90s, including “Silsila” (1981), “Chandni” (1989), “Lamhe” (1991) and “Darr” (1993). Mr. Sharma was one of the few Indian musicians to connect the worlds of classical and popular music.
In 1974, Mr. Sharma gave a concert in North America with sitar virtuoso Pandit Ravi Shankar as part of former Beatle George Harrison’s 45 show “Dark Horse” concert tour, bringing Indian classical music to listeners beyond South Asia with some of the best classics. brought together. Musicians from India – Alla Rakha on tabla, Sultan Khan on sarangi, L. Subramaniam on violin, mridangam and TV Gopalakrishnan on vocals, Bay Chaurasia on flute, Gopal Krishan on vichitra veena and Lakshmi Shankar on vocals.
Mr. Sharma has been awarded some of India’s highest honors, including the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1986, Padma Shri in 1991 and Padma Vibhushan in 2001.
Shiv Kumar (sometimes called Shivkumar) Sharma was born on 13 January 1938 in Jammu, India, the son of Pandit Uma Devi Sharma, a classical musician belonging to the Kesar Devi family and royal priests of the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. . Showing great hopes, she started singing and tabla lessons at the age of 5 with her father. In “Travel with a Hundred Wires” (2002), the biography of Mr. Sharma, Ina Puri He wrote that he would spend hours immersing himself in music, working on various instruments.
“Even then, there was an obsessive element in my attitude towards music,” he said. “It was the air I breathed, it was the reason I lived.”
By the age of 12, he was a successful tabla player, performing regularly on Radio Jammu and accompanying leading musicians visiting the city. When he was 14, his father returned from Srinagar, where he worked, with a gift: a santor.
Mr. Sharma was not happy to learn a new, unfamiliar instrument. But his father was determined. “Write down my words, son,” he remembered his father saying. “Shiv Kumar Sharma and santoor will become synonymous for years to come. Have the courage to start something from scratch. You will be recognized as a pioneer.”
In 1955, Mr. Sharma gave his first major performance in santoor at the Haridas Sangeet Sammelan festival in Mumbai (now Mumbai). The youngest participant, aged 17, convinced the organizers to let him play both santoor and tabla. He was reluctantly given 30 minutes to play the instrument he wanted, but on the day of the recital he played the santoor for a full hour – to enthusiastic applause. The organizers called him back the next day for another recital.
He soon received offers to act and act in Hindi films, but after one movie, his 1955 hit movie “Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje” was determined to focus on classical music. He gave concerts around the country to install Santoor as a classical instrument.
Moved to Mumbai at age 22; To earn a living, he played santoor in dozens of popular Indian movie songs while continuing to build his classical reputation.
He was survived by his wife, Manorama; his sons, Rahul and Rohit, a well-known santor player and composer; and two grandchildren.
After Mr. Sharma’s death, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among those who paid tribute. “Our cultural world has become poorer with the death of Pandit Shivkumar Sharma Ji” wrote on twitter. “It made Santoor popular globally. His music will continue to fascinate future generations.”
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