Lover of Indian culture honoured

BERLIN: A predominantly European audience here was enthralled by a performance by reputed Dhrupad exponents Gundecha Brothers on the occasion of the 100th birth anniversary of Alain Danielou, an India lover who is credited with bringing Indian music to the West.

The music concert was held in the Bode Museum and included presentations by Amelia Cuni, an Italian exponent of Dhrupad, and Peter Pannke, a noted German scholar. The concert, organised by the Ethno-musicology Museum, Berlin, and the Tagore Centre of the Indian Embassy went on well past midnight.

Danielou’s contribution is less known in Europe and India, but he is credited with bringing many Indian musicians to perform in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s.  Indian embassy sources here say that Danielou was so overwhelmed with the richness of the Indian culture that he adopted the name ‘Shiv Sharan’ and proclaimed himself to be a ‘Hindu’.

Danielou joined the Benares Hindu University as a professor in 1949 and also served as director of the College of Indian Music in Varanasi. He went on to set up the International Institute for Traditional Music in Berlin through which even folk and temple music and musicians were promoted.