A Hundred Strings in Oxford

On 18 November we return to the Holywell Music Room with A Hundred Strings in Oxford: Two Strings, One Pulse, a year after Raga Unison brought bansuri and tabla to the same room. Three musicians this time, and two ways of playing a raga on strings.

Adnan Khan, a Grammy-nominated sitarist, plays in the gayaki ang, the approach that shapes the instrument after the singing voice. He took his first lessons from his grandfather, the late Ustad Zafar Ahmed Khan, and trains with his father, the sitar player Ustad Saeed Khan.

Vinay Desai plays the santoor, the hundred-stringed instrument of Kashmir, as a direct disciple of Padma Vibhushan Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. The sitar is plucked and slides between notes. The santoor is struck and cannot slide, so it moves in runs. The two instruments share a raga and take different routes through it.

Ustad Akram Khan plays tabla for both halves. He is the seventh generation of his family in the Ajrada Gharana, learned from his great-grandfather Ustad Mohammad Shafi Khan and then from Ustad Niazu Khan, and teaches more than fifteen of the gharana's classic kaydas.

Doors open at 6.45pm and the music starts at 7pm. Full running order to follow.