Music Study Information

Music Society runs each day of the year.

Instrumental/Vocal/Dance(Kathak) of Indian Classical Music. 

Study programme at Academy of Indian Classical Music - Varanasi - India.

We also provide online Music Class by Skype.

The academy welcomes all music lovers from different parts of the world to come and study Indian classical music at Academy in Varanasi or by online Music class.

Our aim is to serve and maintain the purity of Indian Classical Music (Benares Gharana) and give our students pure knowledge of music under guidance of world class Musicians like Sitar maestro Pandit Shivnath Mishra, Deobrat Mishra and others. 

Varanasi is a very well known place for Indian Classical music but there was not a proper society where students can learn music with master Musicians so our Academy try to build up a place where students can find devoted teachers.

Music,Yoga and Spirituality Retreat for 15 days in Varanasi Jan/Feb 2019 

Please contact us for any information about study programme.

 

 

 

Dear Friends of World Music & Dance,

Here are details regarding the study Programme of the Academy of Indian Classical music, Instrumental/Vocal/Dance

The core offering is a

• 4 weeks Beginner Classes
• 8 weeks to 12 weeks Advance Classes
• Long turm study

Please inquire for study.

 

Online Music Lessons on Skype

Good news for people who can’t come to India to study music! Now Deobrat Mishra and the Academy Teacher Team will give online lessons to students from all over the world.

contact us in advance at mishramusic@hotmail.com

Class will be done on Skype: deobratmishra11

Students need to book on line course in advance.

 

Enjoying and deepening an understanding of music and cultural life in India are the main aims of this Academy.

The Curriculum:

The curriculum is shaped to meet the specific areas of interest and types of instruments (including voice) performed by the people taking part in the lessons.

Singing is the heart of all studies. When playing your instrument, as Ali Akbar Khan has said, you must be “singing inside.” Students might tell us about their particular areas of interest in musical study beforehand, so that we might engage musical resources in the local music community to meet those areas of interest, such as: voice, tabla, sitar & surbahar (base sitar), sarod, harmonium, flute and many others.

Students might schedule their lessons according to their chosen subjects of study, which means that they might attend any and/or all classes offered, as they wish.

Recording devices are welcome.

If please let us know and Deobrat Mishra can make sure that an instrument of suitable quality might be available under due consideration if you wish to acquire a specific instrument while you studying at the Academy.

 

Music Classes: (Mon-Sat)

Most of music Class runs one hour but if you want you can have class more then one hour.

 

The Academy

Built specifically to be a school of music while studying music and dance, the Academy is situated within a five minute walk from the long arc of the Ganga River.

On the ground floor the Academy houses a generous concert, recital and music hall, where you may see and hear numerous amazing performances by some of Varanasi’s most brilliant musical luminaries.

Academy construction completed in 2007, the Academy is a place full of light, lots of Joy... and music!

Cost: Priceless...

Please Ask for study programme in advance.

Thanks for your interest and please let me know about your thoughts, questions & concerns.

How to get to Varanasi:

The best way to come to India is flying to Delhi and from Delhi there are two ways of getting to Varanasi.

1st way is by flight what takes around one hour and a half. There are many companies which offer their flights, such as: Spice Jet, Kingfisher, Jet Air Ways and Indian Airlines. Please check the official website of any of those companies and, if you want, you can buy your flight ticket online.

2nd way if you prefer to come by train, which is a less costly option, though it takes 12 to 13 hours. The train's name is Shivaganga Express or Kashi Vishwanath Express (this takes around 16 hours).

It is important to know that you can reserve your tickets online. If interested, please click: http://www.indianrail.gov.in/

Make sure that you book your ticket in advance.

 

Accommodation & Food near the Academy:

As we can not host students but there are many places near academy to stay, also academy can help to find you place to stary for you near by if you let us know in advance.Also there are many good quality restaurants and hotels near Academy.

Testimonies from past students

1 - John Goulter, Australia-2012
The academy is great place to come learn and experience real Indian classical music. The atmosphere here is heaven for musical lovers and student alike. It has a very quiet environment perfect for learning music and culture.

2 - Sally Cooper-Australia-2010/1011
I have been a student of both meditation and Indian classical singing for some years and became interested in the curriculum of the school, due to the highly advanced level of skill and experience of the teachers, and to the integrity of their cultural lineage.

Also because of the fact that the academy accepted foreign students, who, like me, wanted to intensify and deepen my understanding of Indian classical music through living and studying in India's’ ancient Holy city, Varanasi (or Benares).

I was in Varanasi in December 2011 to study Indian classical singing with Deobrat Mishra.

I highly recommend Deobrat and his academy in Varanasi to serious students of Indian classical music.

To study with the Mishras in Varanasi provides students with an opportunity to gain an understanding of the true heart and soul of Indian classical music. This is an understanding that goes deeper than just acquiring technical skill.

The Mishras are not only excellent musicians, they are also genuine and fine teachers. Their academy offers a supportive and inspiring atmosphere for students to learn and practice. It is also offers students an opportunity to learn from observing the sublime musical performances of the Mishra family. I really enjoyed their performances!

To study with Deobrat Mishra in Varanasi was a valuable opportunity for me and one that I am truly grateful for.

If going to India to study music with the Mishras is something you are considering doing, I would say just do it!

3 - Jonathan Bailey -England 2012
I was fortunate enough to spend the summer months in Varanasi studying with the Mishras and it was a truly unforgettable experience.

The academy gave me the opportunity to be surrounded by music, and to study with world class musicians was pretty amazing.

Anyone looking in to going to India to study at this academy, make it happen! You won't regret it.

Contact Academy:

Deobrat Mishra mishramusic@hotmail.com
0091-542-24556720091-542-2455672
www.music-of-benares.com

"Language of the Gods"...

by Marco Zonka

In one of the oldest and most continually inhabited cities in the world, Varanasi, India, very little is new under the sun. Her days numbered by the fleeting reign of kings and queens, her nights measured by the rise and fall of empires, Varanasi -- or Benares, as it is also know -- has been the sacred destination of pilgrimages throughout the millennia. It is also the city of the holy mother of rivers: the Ganga, or “mother river”. And much like the Nile in Egypt, the Ganga River valley is a cradle of ancient, and modern, Hindustani civilization. Hundreds of temples adorn her shores, a necklace of radiant and crumbling jewels. Songs and prayers emerge in their billions from these temples, floating out over the rippling waters of the Ganga.

Though little in Varanasi is ever really new among the millions of living souls who live in or visit her yearly, new forms of some very refreshingly ‘old forms’ are being born and reborn daily. So when a living musical tradition evolving for more than three thousand years finds a new home along the seething streets of Varanasi, that is either no big news, or very big news indeed.

From the "Temples of the Gods" Into "The Palaces of the Queens & Kings" -- A Brief History

The origin of Hindustani classical music can be traced back to Vedic times, nearly five thousand years ago. Some say its origin is far older, lost in the mists of distant times and places beyond the lives and memories of humankind. Sanskrit writings ascribe its genealogy to a period in remote antiquity. There, it is written, this music was originally "the language of the gods."

From this obscure point of indeterminate origin, it evolved over thousands of years in temples and spiritual traditions throughout the Indian subcontinent. And many centuries ago, it moved from the temples into the palaces of the kings and queens of India, who were its most fervent and avid patrons. The music of the temples, adapting to it’s new environment in the courts of worldly kings, began also to express the regal and earthly sensibilities of the imperial court.

Later, during the cultural influx and imperial dominion of the Persian and Muslim kings, it underwent yet another metamorphosis: Enriched by the playful, improvisatory, and carnal aires favored by the Persian and Islamic musical masters, the genius of the ecstatic music from Persia began consorting with the traditions of sacred music in India. And it was a fruit-full union indeed, resulting today in the many branches of Hindustani music that bless Northern India –and now even more of the world-- with the vibrancy of musical mysteries and melodies that both echo and live from another time…another world.

Much of the mystery and alluring depth that the listener can experience in this music comes from this dynamic blend; the alchemy of the sacred embracing the senses; Persian imagination and sensuality embracing Hindu precision and discipline; the earthly embracing the otherworldly; the known exploring and experiencing the unknown.

One evening, a few years ago, after explaining a bit of the history of the music in relation to the patronage of the high courts of India in previous centuries, Deobrat Mishra -- quite a raconteur in his own right -- said to an audience:
“Now it is different, and also the same.
“My grandfathers played for kings and queens of India. But they are gone now.
“Now, it is you who are the kings and queens.
“And we are here to play for you.”

Milestones & Millennia…

So this month marks yet another small and large milestone along the millennial path of classical Hindustani music: the Pramila-Shivnath Mishra family branch of the Benares ‘gharana’ (‘ancestral linage’) finds a new home in the very old city of their origin.

And as the Academy of Classical Indian Music built by the family of Shivnath Mishra in Benares opens its doors for the first time, a uniquely intimate doorway into the world of Classical Indian music is also being opened; a door through which either the novice or accomplished practitioner may enter and be met, at and above, their present level of musical experience and evolution.

Circles and horizons...

The Mishras played for the first time on this continent in Nelson B.C. almost ten years ago. Like many avian species that fly in from distant lands to spend their summers among the waters and forests of plenty, the Mishra’s have flown from Asia to North America yearly since then.

Expanding their travel horizons to a widening community of sacred music enthusiasts in over 100 towns and cities, virtuoso sitarist Shivnath Mishra, and sitar-duet musical partner and son Deobrat Mishra, have musically hand-forged hundreds of intimate personal connections through circles of friends far and wide in British and American Columbiana, a favored playground on their yearly migrations around the world.

Those who have experienced the Mishras in performance are touched by the tender and loving, and also ferocious and adversarial, musical dialogue that unfolds between this father and son duet, or –as some say—“duel.” Humorous and endearing, mysterious and unpredictable, eliciting often from their listeners bursts of laughter and tears, Shivnath & Deobrat Mishra, as sitarists and singers in duet, are always an adventure full of passion and surprise.

"Each performance is kind of life-time,"" Deobrat once said. "And like a lifetime, it must include and express everything."

Leaning toward the microphone, with limited English but expansive perspectives, Pandit Shivnath added:
"Father and son together...very difficult...sometimes play, sometimes no play...very difficult".. his bemused smile expressing volumes of nuance, implicit to the dynamic emotional interplay in the changing constellations of father and son.

Spectrum of emotion…

Pandit Shivnath Mishra’s playing style, devotional and exuberant, daring and tender, has mesmerized and delighted thousands of people in India and Europe and North American for decades. His energetic and engaging and mischievous mastery of his most deeply ‘native tongue’ – the language of music known as “raga”, often leaves his audiences both thoroughly engaged, and entranced.

"Raga", a Sanskrit word, means variously a color, a feeling, a rainbow, a time of day, a melody, a spectrum of emotion.

After thirty six years as the head of the Music Department at Sampurnand Sanskrit University in Varanasi, and over twenty years of performing and teaching in Europe and Asia and North America -- 'Pandit' (or "maestro") Shivnath Mishra has been teacher and mentor to thousands of students and disciples, communicating across four decades and three continents his love for and knowledge of this precious music.