Garland of sound The majestic and modest raga BY ALEXANDER PROVAN

Sitar maestro Sugato Nag and tabla player Nitin Mitta had never played together before. Arun Agrawal, founder of the local Indian cultural organization Raagmaala, explained nervously on a September evening at a Brown University auditorium that the scheduled tabla player had difficulties getting into the country, so Agrawal called Mitta, a Rhode Island resident, at the last minute. The unfortunately named concert — "Exotic Sounds of the Sitar" — began amidst a flurry of sweetly resonating sitar notes and gracefully tapped tabla rhythms that soon put Agrawal and the rest of the packed hall at ease. The audience was treated to a revelatory three-hour raga saturated with virtuosic riffs, ecstatic rhythms, and blissful meditations.

On Saturday, Raagmaala will present its second concert of the season, featuring Dhrupad singer Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar, who will be accompanied by Mohan Shyam Sharma on Pakhawaj, a double-sided drum, and Qamar Dagar and Miss Laurence Bastit on the tanpura, an Indian lute whose strings are plucked to create an ethereal drone.

Dhrupad is the oldest form of Indian classical singing, and most other styles invented over the last thousand years are derived from it. Its name, generally interpreted as "the eternal verse," is taken from the foundational Indian epic poem "The Mahabharata" — Drupada is the king of Panchala, the land between the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. Evolved from devotional chanting in temples, Dhrupad is characterized by a slow tempo and a rigorous purity — each raga utilizes a single melodic line, with a tanpura drone girding the ambling vocals. A raga is most akin to a traditional folk song or ballad that can be adapted freely, like "John Henry," and is passed down by musicians and families. It is a set of rules for constructing a melody, prescribing which notes may be used and to what extent in order to create a loose framework for each improvisation.

The Dagars have carried on the Dhrupad tradition for more than 20 successive generations and were instrumental in reviving the form after it fell into disuse during the 18th century, when a style called Kyal supplanted it. As Indian classical music was gaining popular international acclaim in the 1960s, the Dagars toured widely and released some of the first Dhrupad recordings, encouraging a new crop of singers and reviving the form. Despite being highly improvised, Dhrupad demands a rare fastidiousness and attention to microtonal variations. Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar has masterfully adapted the styles of his father and uncle. He places notes delicately across three octaves; his lithe voice meticulously shades tones one minute and gently blankets the swelling tanpura drone the next. Despite his vocal flexibility, the singing is dignified and restrained, interpreting the raga majestically but modestly, as if his own ego has disappeared into the billowy mass of sound.

There are happy parallels between the microtonal variations, primordial drones, and unassuming instrumental acrobatics of Indian classical music and the strains of free folk, oceanic noise, and swirling psychedelia that characterize Providence’s musical scene. These forms share a common ancestry, rooted in the ’60s experiments that saw the Beatles, eyes glazed, prophesying from beneath the wing of Ravi Shankar, and birthed the American minimalism of Philip Glass and Terry Riley. In other words, a sizable contingent of Raagmaala attendants might otherwise be found at a show at AS220.

Until Agrawal started Raagmaala, which translates as "garland of music," in 1997, there were few chances for members of Rhode Island’s Indian diasporic community to see artists such as Dagar perform. The non-profit’s concerts consistently sell out and attract students, artists, musicians, delighted seekers of unusual forms, and Indian music neophytes, who can be identified by their persistently awestruck visages. Agrawal suggests that audiences might be fascinated by the aspects of Indian music that distinguish it from Western music: stunning improvisation, the use of microtones, and the development of simple melodic patterns over long periods of time. "What fascinates the concertgoers is the fact that this music is not written," Agrawal says. "This music . . . is not based on harmony but on melody." To Agrawal, the popularity of the music among intrepid listeners proves it is "not a fad anymore, like [it was in] the ’60s."

USTAD WASIFUDDIN DAGAR | BLACKSTONE RIVER THEATRE, 549 BROAD ST, CUMBERLAND | NOV 12 | 401.725.9272 | do u kno