The lineage and the music
Hindustani classical music is not learned from a book. It passes from teacher to student, one raga at a time, over years.
Guru shishya parampara
The guru shishya parampara is the teacher to student lineage through which Hindustani classical music has always been transmitted. The student listens, imitates, is corrected, and listens again. Nothing is written down that matters. What is passed on is not a set of songs but a way of hearing.
Aniruddh Aithal began this training at the age of ten and has studied under two teachers.
Smt. Geetha Garud Prithviraj
Aniruddh trained under Smt. Geetha Garud Prithviraj.
The foundation years of a vocalist decide everything that follows: voice production, breath control, sur, and the patience to stay inside a single raga long enough to hear what it is actually asking for. That work is slow, unglamorous and entirely dependent on the quality of the teacher supervising it.
Dr. Ashok Huggannavar
Aniruddh trained under Dr. Ashok Huggannavar.
Advanced training in this tradition moves beyond correctness towards judgement: how a raga is opened, how far an idea is developed before it is left, what belongs in a concert and what does not. This is the stage at which a student stops reproducing a teacher and starts sounding like a musician.
Rare repertoire
Alongside the Hindustani classical canon, Aniruddh performs four devotional and theatrical song forms that are seldom heard on the concert platform today. They matter for a simple reason. Each carries a body of poetry that was written to be sung, and when the forms fall out of the repertoire the poetry stops being heard at all.
Songs written for the professional stage tradition and carried from the theatre into concert performance.
Devotional compositions of the Haridasa saint poets.
Devotional poetry of the Sharana movement, set to music.
Songs written for the Marathi Sangeet Natak stage, composed on Hindustani ragas and carried from the theatre into concert performance.
For details of the specific compositions in the current repertoire, please contact the artist’s representative.
Programme enquiries
Programme content is planned with the presenter, according to the occasion and the length of the concert.