In February, 2006, legendary Russian rocker Boris Grebenshikov met the late Indian spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy--who blessed him with the name Puroshottama--"the one who is beyond all limitations."
Grebenshikov was in excellent form last night at New York University's Skirball Center as he broke past one major limitation in performing a free concert, "Songs Of The Soul--A Tribute To Sri Chinmoy's 80th Birth Anniversary."
"Life is strange for musicians like me," the deeply soulful Grebenshikov said at a pre-concert press conference for mostly Russian media. "Promoters never, ever, ever let me play for free! They refuse because they can't make money, so when I get the chance to play for free I jump at it!"
What made this concert extra special for a singer-songwriter often referred to as Russia's poet laureate was that it offered a "rare chance to play with people I know so well and love so much." Rather than bringing his famed rock band Aquarium, Grebenshikov, on acoustic guitar, performed an acoustic set here with seven other international musicians, most notably including Indian table virtuoso Samir Chatterjee, New York flute and horn player Premik Russell Tubbs, violinists Dundubhi Dikel (Switzerland) and Nilasha Broughton (Canada) and Austrian cellist Shamita Achenback-Konig.
Rounding out the band were a sitarist and harmonium player, all on a stage bedecked with flowers, candles and Buddhist/Hindu statuary. An ensemble of 40 or so other musicians and singers offered a short set of contemplative music composed by Chinmoy prior to Grebenshikov's group, which beautifully enveloped the St. Petersburg artist's own pensive vocals on Russian songs familiar to the enrapt and largely Russian crowd in the packed auditorium.
For Grebenshikov it was clearly the "joyous" musical reunion that he spoke of at the press conference, where he also said he has nearly completed a new, "very muscular" Aquarium album.
"I can't remember doing an album of that type," he said, adding that he'd come to New York after two and a-half weeks of exhausting work on it.
"I forgot I'm from Russia!" the weary world traveler/troubadour concluded.
[The Examiner wrote the liner notes to Boris Grebenshikov's first American album, Radio Silence (1989).]
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