Chinmaya Dunster
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Chinmaya Dunster is an English-born Sarod player whose compositions utilize elements of Celtic and Hindustani music.
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[edit] Biography
Born in 1954 in Kent, England in Chinmaya Dunster (né Stephen Dunster) attended Art college in Canterbury and pursued the independent study of classical guitar and composition throughout his adolescence and early twenties.
After finishing his formal education in the late seventies, Dunster left Europe, traveling through Afghanistan into northern India, where he became acquainted with classical Indian music and instrumentation. In 1979, in the north Indian city of New Delhi, he attended an all-night performance of the sarod master, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and subsequently spent the next thirteen years engaged in the study of the sarod both in London and India.
As Hindustani musical tradition dictates[1] that knowledge of technique and tradition is generally handed down through from father to son, Dunster was initially challenged to find a teacher. Eventually he was to find a teacher in Pune, India, with Shekhar Borkar, a mainly self-taught sarod master. [2]
In 1990, Dunster founded the east-west fusion band with Prem Joshua, Terra Incognita and released two albums under that name through New Earth Records. After several solo projects, Dunster then founded the Celtic Ragas Band, whose self-titled 2001 release (New Earth Records), attracted the favor of former Beatles member Sir Paul McCartney, who then invited Dunster to perform at his 2002 wedding to Heather Mills in Ireland.
The following year he and the Celtic Ragas Band performed a CONCERT FOR INDIA'S ENVIRONMENT at BVIEER, Pune, released as the live CD 'Fragrance of the East' on New Earth Records. The video of this concert, blended with interviews with environmentalists, Indian schoolchildren reading their own poems on nature and stunning footage of the Indian wilderness, is available for free distribution at www.fragranceoftheeast.org[3]. The full film is free to download.
Chinmaya Dunster currently resides in Goa, India.
[edit] Partial Discography
- Fragrance of the East
- Sacred Temples of India
- Buddha Moon
- Celtic Ragas
- Feng Shui -The Eightfold Path
- Yoga: On Sacred Ground
- Celtic Ragas Band: Karma Circles
- Yoga Lounge
- Terra Incognita: No Goal But The Path
- Terra Incognita: Tribal Gathering
