Sabir Khan & Heiko Dijker

The voice of a hundred colors

Unlike the sitar, the sarangi is not really a familiar sight outside of India, even though it’s one of the most important instruments of North Indian classical music. It is not an imposing device: no more than a small, angular wooden box with lots of strings that you play with a bow. But the sarangi is very popular in India. It’s often called ‘the voice of a hundred colours’, not only because of the slightly nasal and lilting tone, but especially because of the many resonance strings (numbering no fewer than thirty) that produce a whole array of overtones. It gives the sound of the sarangi something elusive, something immaterial. 

Mix of special instruments

Sabir Sultan Khan is one of the leading players of the instrument and is the son of the legendary sarangi player and singer Padma Bhushan Ustad Sultan Khan. During Music Meeting he will perform with the Dutch tabla player Heiko Dijker, who has already accompanied numerous Indian celebrities and also regularly works with artists from lots of other disciplines, among them the Japanese marimba virtuoso Shinske Ishihara and the Tunisian duo Amine and Hamza M'raihi.

Line-up

Sabir Sultan Khan - Sarangi (vedel)
Heiko Dijker - Tabla