72 Carnatic Melakarta

Volume 1: First 12 Melakartas

by Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish and Ashwin Batish

About the Artists

A brilliant set of 12 compositions composed by Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish. It brings a fresh expression to the first 12 Carnatic Melakartas that Panditji sings in the North Indian classical tradition. Accompaniment is provided by Shri Ashwin Batish on the sitar, tabla and various other instruments.

S.D. Batish's career in music is nothing but extraordinary. Since a very young age his love of singing was evident. When asked, he attributes this gift to his beloved mother whom he credits with many old compositions. He often starts singing them in rememberance. His time with his Guruji Chandan Ram Charan gave him an acute and critical look into the classical raga structures. He was quick to learn and rendered his Guruji's songs with great accuracy and love. This brought a great deal of attention and focus on him from the Indian music community as he travelled all across India as an All India Radio artist, His frequent concerts also brought him fame and he was naturally inducted into the film industry by his cousin Pt. Amarnath. Here he honed his skills as a singer, and composer. Later, he was to direct and compose music for many movies in Patiala, Lahore, Bombay and England. This bought him fame and respect amongst his fans and peers. Today these years of experience and this skill of composing and writing with such acute awareness has all come together to enable him to write over 30 books on Indian music and compose over 5000 compositions to help teach the music of India to the lover and student of Hindustani Sangeet.

Ashwin Batish is an extraordinary sitarist and tabla player. He received training in the North Indian classical tradition from his father S.D. Batish and later created his own unique fusion of Indian classical sitar with pop, rock, jazz, calypso, funk... an example of a few hybrids he excells at. He is famous for such songs as the Bombay Boogie, Raga Rock, Raga Jazz, Casbah Shuffle and Sitar Mania. Ashwin is also very well know for being an educator. His series of instructional videos for the sitar, tabla, dilruba, dholak, vichitra veena, harmonium that he has produced with his father Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish have become a very sought after commodity by the Indian music student. Ashwin often gives private and group Indian music lessons at his Santa Cruz, California USA facility and is often called upon by various music festivals and universities to perform his sitar and be a guest lecturer for weekend workshops and seminars on Indian music and ethnopop, raga rock sitar fusion.