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Gautam Tejas Ganeshan, was very clear about what he wanted when he founded the Sangati Center three years ago, at 23.
“What this place is is a chamber music venue for Indian classical acoustic music,” he said.
Ganeshan, who grew up in Houston, a city with a large Indian population, says most Indian music venues in the U. S. fall into three categories: ones who do big, expensive superstar concerts about once a year; neighborhood groups that rent out a community space to bring a musician to town; and schools like the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael.
The Sangati Center is none of these.
The center is unique in many ways. First there’s its location. A small, former storefront on 22nd and Shotwell in San Francisco’s Mission District isn’t a place you’d expect to find a high caliber of musicians performing Indian classical music. The 650-square-foot center hosts at least six concerts a month, of both Northern and Southern Indian musical styles. There’s no stage, so performers sit on the floor along with the audience. And then there’s the amplification—there is none.
“I’m an advocate, but not an activist for acoustic music,” Ganeshan said. “I want people to just sit down and make music with no intermediary forces.”
Ganeshan says as a performer, he never wanted to concern himself with equipment and sound systems.
“I don’t have a big aptitude for speakers and electronics,” he said. “I’m a musician. I want to make music.”
He adds, perhaps unnecessarily, that he is not Britney Spears.
“Some people who are regulars here went to see her concert and they told me the most interesting thing about it wasn’t the music, but the production,” he said. “Where is she going to come from next, what’s happening with the lighting, that kind of thing.”
There won’t be a lot in the way of special effects at Sangati Center concerts. But anyone wanting to hear a South Indian stringed instrument, the veena, or the tabla, a North Indian percussion instrument, or a concert with an All India Radio vocalist, can do that in the next few weeks. All are welcome, including Britney Spears fans.
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