Kamalesh Maitra

Biography

Kamalesh Maitra (28 April 1928 – 22 April 2005), often referred to by the title Pandit, was an Indian classical musician, composer and teacher. He is recognised as the last master of the tabla tarang – a melodic percussion instrument consisting of numerous individually tuned hand drums, set in a semicircle. Maitra grew up in Calcutta and played the tabla until joining Uday Shankar's ballet company in 1950 and taking up the tabla tarang. He became the company's musical director and toured internationally with the troupe through to the mid-1970s. Along with Alla Rakha, Shivkumar Sharma, Hariprasad Chaurasia and others, Maitra was among the musicians that Ravi Shankar selected for his Music Festival from India revue in 1974. He then accompanied Shankar on ex-Beatle George Harrison's North American tour that year – a venture that led to him performing with American jazz musicians Emil Richards and Tom Scott. Maitra settled in Berlin in 1977, where he performed and worked as a music teacher. In 1980, he formed the Ragatala Ensemble, an orchestra that fused elements of Indian and European classical music with jazz and other Western genres. Among his recordings, Tabla Tarang – Melody on Drums (1996) has received critical acclaim, one reviewer describing it as a "milestone" in world music. Maitra developed strong cultural ties with Berlin and continued to live and work in Germany until his death in 2005.

Bio from Wikipedia