purusa is an australian sitarist, all of whose sitar study has been within the maihar gharana, founded by allauddin khan (guru of ali akbar khan and ravi shankar); including such teachers as alan posselt (student of allauddin khan and radhka moitra) and ashok roy (ali akbar sarode disciple) in australia; krishna chakravarty (ravi shankar disciple) in india; ali akbar khan in america; and most recently with dr chandrakant sardeshmukh (ravi shankar disciple) ... as sitar soloist he has performed in australia india and america, absorbing to date a core repertoire of several hundred ragas
in addition to continuing with mainstream classical/new music composition, he has developed performance pieces fusing diverse elements (indian/western; composed/improvised; acoustic/electronic) within an evolving conception of sitar performance combining traditional indian forms, diverse world music traditions (such as jazz, african, east asian and australian aboriginal musics), and modular modal/harmonic structures (for which he has coined the term "haraga")
accordingly he has performed with various ensemble lineups including indian, east asian and aboriginal performers, and musicians from western classical and jazz backgrounds ... he plays both an acoustic hemen and flat-gourd electric sitars, in performance using various signal processing and synthesizer modules to produce a wide timbral range from pure acoustic sitar, to mixing electronic effects and midi-triggered timbres for extended synth-like sustain ...
selected ensemble compositions :
shimmering - ensemble with/out cd backing (c. 10:00)
spans - ensemble and cd backing (c. 14:00)
expans series I - VII :
expans I - ensemble (c. 10:00)
expans II - ensemble and cd backing (c. 10:00)
expans III - ensemble (c. 20:00)
expans IV - ensemble and string quartet (c. 15:00)
expans V - ensemble and tape (i) pulse/flow (c. 18:00)
(ii) lovesong (c. 5:00)
expans V (flow) - ensemble (c. 10:00)
expans VI - ensemble (i) honey be (c. 7:00)
(ii) pulse (c. 10:00)
(iii) edgecolours (c. 10:00)
(iv) onya (c. 20:00)
(v) passages (c. 10:00)
(vi) haraga / curush (c. 15:00)
expans VII - ensemble (i) haraga / seven heaven (c. 10:00)
xiao yao you (c. 20:00)
(ii) saljan (for sitar and guitar) (c. 10:00)
(iii) haraga / aimless (c. 10:00)
(iv) heartshift (c. 10:00)
(v) raga / throb (c. 15:00)
(vi) turnpoint (for sitar and guitar) (c. 10:00)
(vii) blue (c.10:00)
mantra / dao streams series I - VII :
raga / mantra I - ensemble (c. 10:00) / angelclaws
haraga / mantra II - ensemble and tape (c. 10:00)
haraga / mantra III - ensemble (c. 25:00)
haraga / mantra IV - ensemble (c. 15:00)
raga / mantra V - ensemble and tape
haraga / mantra VI - ensemble (c. 15:00)
haraga / mantra VII - ensemble (c. 15:00)
dreamode
raga gaia / earthsong
raga komal re gaia
raga purusa
raga samantra
raga padao
raga yaman dhaneshri
raga charukeshi kafi