At 8 p.m. on Oct. 21, applause swelled inside Spaulding Auditorium as Anoushka Shankar settled onstage and began to tune up. The enormous 20-fret instrument rose taller than the renowned sitarist herself.
This weekend was perfect timing for Shankar's performance as she wished the audience "Happy Diwali," the Hindu New Year, the Festival of Light, for which Dartmouth students and the Hanover Hindu community had earlier lined the Green with lighted candles.
Shankar began her concert of songs from her newest album "Rise" with the classical piece "Voice of the Moon," revolutionary for its mid-song movement from a six-beat to a 16-beat cycle. The composition showcased the Indian melodic scale called "raga," whose Eastern sounds were complemented by Western cello and violin.
The rest of the songs were "rooted in the classical style but var[ied] in instrumentation," Shankar said. "Prayer in Passing" incorporated drum and electric bass alongside basuri flute, piano, and duduk, a Middle Eastern wind instrument. Described as "very languid ... and dreamy" by Shankar on her official website, the track ended with gentle fading percussion.
Shankar then transitioned seamlessly to "Sinister Grains," which created a joyful buzz in the audience with its unexpected quick tempo and innovative use of didgeridoo, bass, electronica, and Indian and South American vocals.
"Rebirth" was next. It was the first song Shankar co-wrote with Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj and was featured on the Indian musician MIDIval Punditz's 2005 album "MIDIval Times." It was the only song in the concert not from "Rise."
The ambiance at this point was unbelievably hypnotic.
Shankar swayed sensuously beneath lights that changed from orange to white to yellow, and the following song, "Red Sun," produced a stylistic crescendo that sent the audience into wild applause.
The rapid seven-beat cycle track was easily the concert's highlight. It combined the very traditional Indian vocal style created in the 1940s by Anoushka's father, the legendary Ravi Shankar, with elements from both Northern and Southern India. The vocals of tabla player Tanmoy Bose and flutist Ravichandra Kulur were guttural, almost onomatopoeic.
The songs "Naked" and "Solea" followed. These tracks featured sitar solos but also sometimes excluded the sitar entirely. "Sea Dreamer" and "Beloved" left the audience in a bit of a lull, but "Mahadeva," a four-line song written by Ravi Shankar about the destructive Hindu god Shiva, reenergized the mood.
"My father taught it to me as a kid and it was playing in my head the whole time I was recording in Calcutta," Shankar said during the performance. This flamboyant song received loud cheers. "Fast Composition in Rag Jog" was the finale, a frantic 16-beat song featuring drum, tabla, flute, and sitar solos.
As Shankar left the stage, she touched her clasped hands to her head and heart in the "namaste" gesture. She received a standing ovation.
Afterwards, most of the audience moved to the Top of the Hop for refreshments and the chance to meet with Shankar.
Most felt there had been something regenerative, almost cathartic about Anoushka Shankar's performance. This is fitting, as Shankar says in her official website that for her "Rise" is a symbol of growth.
