The santoor, known in India as the ‘hundred-stringed lute;, is played by striking the strings with two curved hammers. The santoor was first presented on the classical stage by Shivkumar Sharma in Bombay in 1955, when the maestro was only 17 years old. The santoor is thought to have been spread around the world by itinerant Gypsies and appears in various forms of hammered dulcimer in many cultures.
Zakir Hussain is appreciated both in the field of percussion and in the music world at large as an international phenomenon. A classical tabla virtuoso of the highest order, his consistently brilliant and exciting performances have not only established him as a national treasure in his own country, India, but earned him worldwide fame. His playing is marked by uncanny intuition and masterful improvisational dexterity, founded in formidable knowledge and study. The favorite accompanist for many of India’s greatest classical musicians and dancers, he has not let his genius rest there.
The tabla, the premier North Indian classical percussion instrument, consists of a pair of single-headed tuned kettledrums. The left-hand drum, banya, is made of an alloy of copper and silver with a goatskin membrane and provides a bass note of indefinite pitch. The right-hand drum, tabla, has a hardwood body and the membrane is stretched by a number of thongs and eight wooden blocks which are used for tuning the drum to the keynote. The instrument has provided the primary rhythmic voice of India for centuries and is a sound recognized around the globe.