Shas­tri Boodan

World-renowned tabla mae­stro Nishikant Bar­o­dekar de­liv­ered a pow­er­ful and emo­tion­al­ly charged per­for­mance on June 20 at the Lax­mi Narayan Tem­ple in Freeport, cap­ti­vat­ing a packed au­di­ence with his rhyth­mic bril­liance and deep mas­tery of clas­si­cal In­di­an per­cus­sion.

Bar­o­dekar, one of In­dia’s most cel­e­brat­ed tabla play­ers, head­lined a con­cert that brought to­geth­er in­ter­na­tion­al artistry and lo­cal tal­ent in a cel­e­bra­tion of In­di­an clas­si­cal mu­sic. The event drew mu­sic lovers from across the coun­try and served as a vi­brant re­minder of the cul­tur­al ties be­tween T&T and In­dia.

The In­di­an mae­stro, known for his com­mand of com­plex rhythms and im­pro­vi­sa­tion­al skill, held the au­di­ence in rapt at­ten­tion from the first beat. Bar­o­dekar’s per­for­mance was both tech­ni­cal­ly pre­cise and ar­tis­ti­cal­ly ex­pres­sive, of­fer­ing a rare dis­play of vir­tu­os­i­ty that left con­cert­go­ers vis­i­bly moved.

Shar­ing the stage with him were some of T&T’s most re­spect­ed lo­cal artistes, in­clud­ing Rana Mo­hip, Shiv­anand Ma­haraj, Naren­dra Ma­haraj, Satya­vani Boodoo, and Ro­han Boodoo. Their col­lab­o­ra­tion cre­at­ed a unique mu­si­cal ta­pes­try, blend­ing tra­di­tion with in­no­va­tion and show­cas­ing the depth of the coun­try’s own clas­si­cal mu­sic scene.

Bar­o­dekar’s vis­it was more than a con­cert—it was a cul­tur­al ex­change. His col­lab­o­ra­tion with lo­cal mu­si­cians un­der­scored a shared her­itage and high­light­ed the con­tin­u­ing rel­e­vance of In­di­an clas­si­cal mu­sic in T&T’s di­verse cul­tur­al land­scape.

A dis­ci­ple of leg­endary tabla mae­stros Us­tad Al­larakha and Us­tad Za­kir Hus­sain, Bar­o­dekar was trained in the tra­di­tion­al Gu­rukul sys­tem and has de­vot­ed more than 15 years to per­form­ing and teach­ing the tabla. He is the re­cip­i­ent of pres­ti­gious ac­co­lades in­clud­ing the Laya-Shi­ro­mani and Taal-Mani awards and com­plet­ed the Alankar in Tabla in 2008.

In ad­di­tion to his per­form­ing ca­reer, Bar­o­dekar has over two decades of ex­pe­ri­ence as an ed­u­ca­tor, men­tor­ing a gen­er­a­tion of tabla play­ers, some of whom now per­form pro­fes­sion­al­ly. His teach­ing ca­reer has tak­en him around the world, con­duct­ing mas­ter­class­es and work­shops at top in­sti­tu­tions such as Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty and Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na in the Unit­ed States and Kan­to Gakuen Uni­ver­si­ty in Japan.

Bar­o­dekar is al­so an ac­com­plished com­pos­er and re­searcher. He has cre­at­ed new tabla com­po­si­tions, in­clud­ing Kaidas, Re­las, and Chakradars in un­con­ven­tion­al rhyth­mic cy­cles such as 6.5 and 8.5 beats. His work in the field of world rhythms con­tin­ues to push the bound­aries of the art form.

The per­for­mance was a rare op­por­tu­ni­ty for lo­cal au­di­ences to wit­ness one of the tabla world’s finest ex­po­nents live in con­cert.