Approximately 108 years ago, when recording technology came to India, one of the first Indian musicians to be recorded was Gauhar Jaan. Author Vikram Sampath's recently launched book "My Name is Gauhar Jaan!: The Life and Times of a Musician" describes the life and music of this historic singer of great charisma and prowess. At the request of the Underscore Records team, Vikram Sampath has very kindly read out two passages from his book for this Podcast.

Language: English

Duration: 10 minutes and 45 seconds

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Nirmal Mukherjee is one of the most experienced percussionists in the Bombay/Mumbai film industry, and plays a variety of percussion instruments including congas. However, like many of his colleagues he remains anonymous and unacknowledged in an industry which, until recently, did not list musicians in the credits for films and soundtracks. But for researchers Mukherjee and his colleagues remain an important source of information about one of the most popular genres of Indian music.

Language: Hindi

Duration: 39 minutes and 23 seconds

Interviewer: Dr. Aneesh Pradhan

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On November 14 and 15, 2009, Underscore Records Pvt. Ltd. organized a two-day conference on intellectual property rights for Indian musicians at the Nehru Centre, Mumbai. The conference was generously supported by the Ford Foundation.

The panelists included Professor T.N. Daruwalla (Senior Partner, Jehangir, Gulabbhai, Billimoria and Daruwalla, Advocates and Solicitors), Dr. Ashok Da Ranade (Eminent scholar -musician and composer), Ameet Dutta (Partner, Luthra & Luthra Law Offices), Lawrence Liang (Legal Researcher with Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore), G.R. Raghavender (Registrar of Copyrights & Deputy Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Government of India), Darius F. Dalal (Partner, Jehangir, Gulabbhai, Billimoria and Daruwalla, Advocates and Solicitors), Prafull Anubhai (Saptak Archives, Ahmedabad), Dr. Shubha Chaudhuri (Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology, Gurgaon) and Vishal Dadlani (Musician and Music Director).

Justice B.N. Srikrishna, former Supreme Court Judge, inaugurated the conference on the morning of November 14. He highlighted the central role of music in shaping culture, and accordingly, the state & societys responsibility in ensuring that the integrity of artistic works are protected.

In addition to the panelists and the organizing team led by vocalist Shubha Mudgal and tabla-player Aneesh Pradhan, the conference was also attended by musicians, representatives of independent record labels, members of the legal fraternity and students.

Day 1: Copyright, Performers Rights, & Traditional Knowledge

Day 2: Patenting, Digital Era and the Internet Age, Archiving, & Contracts

Theatre Director Sunil Shanbag in conversation with Aneesh Pradhan In Mumbai. January 2008. The theme for Prithvi Theatre Festival 2007 was Mumbai Musicals and the festival opened with “Mastana Rampuri urf,Chhappan Chhuri” directed by Sunil Shanbag and performed by Arpana, a repertory company founded by Shanbag in 1985. Adapted and written by Chetan Datar, the music for the play is by Milind Joshi. In this episode of the Underscore Podcast, Sunil Shanbag speaks to Aneesh Pradhan about musicals, music for theatre and the challenges posed by musicals.

This episode features special repertoire focusing on the Indian festival of Deepavali or Diwali.

In continuation of Episode 2, this episode offers extracts from vocalist Kausalya Manjeshwar's renderings of the Raags Lalita Gauri and Bageshri Bahar. These are interspersed with comments made by Dr. Ashok Da Ranade, during his lecture titled "They also served", on the occasion of the launch of Kausalya Manjeshwar's MP3 album in 2007.

In 2006 Underscore Records published the music of vocalist Kausalya Manjeshwar, a leading disciple of the legendary Mogubai Kurdikar of the Jaipur Atrauli gharana. This podcast is intended to introduce listeners to the music of Kausalya Manjeshwar, and was first published before she passed away in 2007. More details about the artiste are available here.