Thursday, February 25, 2010

Gourang Kodical's Profile

Gourang Kodical was born on September 28, 1946 in Mumbai. He had his initiation in Tabla at the age of 5 from his music-loving parents (Ramanand & Seeta Kodical). He went on to acquire his formal training from Pt. Shashi Bellare of Mumbai and then from Pt. Dattappa Garud of Bangalore.

Gourang spent most of his school years in Jamnagar (Gujarat). As a youngster he was fortunate to spend weeks together in the close presence of great stalwarts of yesteryear like Smt. Kesarbai Kerkar, Pts. Pannalal and Nikhil Ghosh, Ustads Latafat Hussain and Abdul Haleem Jaffar Khan, who used to enjoy the hospitality of his parents whenever they were invited to perform for a music sabha in Jamnagar. Thus he was brought up in a very intense musical ambience. He gave his maiden public performance at the age of eight.

His advanced training in Tabla was under Tabla Nawaz Ustad Shaikh Dawood of Hyderabad, who is chiefly responsible for moulding him into the refined artiste that he is today. With the blessings of his Guru, Gourang has evolved a style of his own for accompanying Hindustani vocal music. Although Gourang accompanies both vocalists and instrumentalists with equal ease, his forte is his unique style of accompanying vocalists. No matter what Gharana the vocalist belongs to, Gourang’s sangat blends with the gayaki with perfection. His accompaniment is unobtrusive and yet lends excellent support to the musician, while merging with the music.

Some of the stalwarts Gourang Kodical has accompanied are:
Mallikarjun Mansur, Basavaraj Rajaguru, Kumar Gandharva, Bhimsen Joshi, K G Ginde, Dinkar Kaikini, Yashwantbua Joshi, Rajan & Sajan Misra, Kishori Amonkar, Prabha Atre, Lalith J Rao, Parveen Sultana, Ram Narayan, Hariprasad Chaurasia and others.

Musicians of the younger generation he has accompanied include:
Prabhakar Karekar, Ajoy Chakrabarty, Ulhas Kashalkar, Rashid Khan, Malini Rajurkar, Veena Sahasrabuddhe, Padma Talwalkar, Arati Anklikar, Ashwini Deshpande etc.

He has gone on extensive concert tours of USA, UK, Canada, Europe, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh with musicians like Pt. Dinkar Kaikini, Smt Lalith J Rao and Pt. Vinayak Torvi (Vocal), Pt. Devendra Murdeshwar (Bansuri), Sri N Rama Rao and Sri T Radhakrishna (Sitar).

Gourang has been invited to judge several state and national level music competitions and is on the panel of examiners for award of scholarships by the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training (CCRT), Delhi. He is also a member of the local audition board of All India Radio, Bangalore.

He is a founder member, and till recently, was the Hon. Secretary for a period of twenty years, of a very active and thriving music sabha in Bangalore called ‘Sursagar’. Started in 1982, the Sabha has presented over 300 Hindustani musicians from all over India and abroad to the discerning audiences of Bangalore.

In recognition of his meritorious service in the field of Hindustani Music (Tabla), the Karnataka Sangeet Nritya Academy honoured Gourang with an award and the title,
‘Karnataka Kalashree’, in the year 2000-2001. He was conferred the prestigious Karnataka State Rajyotsava Award in the year 2007.

Apart from his active role in the music field, Gourang Kodical has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the Madras University and in March 2001, opted for voluntary retirement from the State Bank of Hyderabad, where he served for over 31 years.

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