AT a recent musical concert at Alliance Francaise, Salahuddin Mahmud Shantonu treated the audience to a skillful performance on the santoor, a Kashmiri folk instrument. The string instrument, with a deep-rooted history in the sub-continent, is made of a trapezoid shaped wooden box and played with a pair of flat wooden pieces curved at the end.

Since only a handful of musicians including septuagenarian artiste Mansur Ahmed, Nurul Islam and the upcoming Shantonu, have so far taken this up as a profession in our country, the discussion naturally veered as to what had inspired Shantonu to learn the difficult art.

Trained under Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma for almost six years, the young musician's passion for the santoor developed from the time he listened to the entrancing music in the film Silsila composed by Sharma. Shantonu closely followed the music compositions in films such as Darr, Chandni, and Sahiban and his eagerness to meet the man behind such priceless compositions grew steadily.

Initially trained in classical vocals by Sri Badol Chondo, Pandit Barin Majumder and later Niaz Mohammad Chowdhury, Shantonu craved to learn more. “Pandit Sharma has been coaching the younger generation in santoor for over 20 years, and it was all the more admirable as he did not charge a penny in fees,” says Shantonu. “The maestro had come to perform in Dhaka and it was by sheer luck that I met him at one of the festivals. Sensing my passion to learn the art, he took me in as his disciple in 1998.”

For the last five years Shantonu has regularly travelled to Bombay for his lessons. “As a world-class performer, demand for Shiv Kumarji's performance is tremendous and his

hectic schedule made it difficult for him to stay in Mumbai for long periods of time. When he could do so, selective students got to train under him. The lessons often stretched from two to three hours and were on a one-to-one basis. The first phase is to listen and learn and the next is to take notations if required. After a week of practice one sat with the maestro to pick up further intricate details.

“A student from Japan, Maree has been training for over 11 years and is adept in Indian classical music, playing ragas and very complex taals as well,” goes on Shantonu.

Shantonu has performed at concerts at Shilpakala Academy, Alliance Francaise and the Bengal Foundation.

“However, this exposure is not sufficient from a career point of view,” says Shantonu.

Shantonu has worked with Swanee Zubayeer in the ghazal singer's recent album and has also accompanied Habib in his latest album. Lately he is busy developing music videos and fusion music for the private-TV channels in Dhaka. With the visuals of Kathak, the sweet notes of rainfall, and the isolation of valleys in his santoor, he has named the episodes as Tarar Shathey, Silent night and Ekakitto. ntv viewers have heard him play the soft sufiana notes of santoor with morning ragasin Shokaler shur.

With such a long list of big-name sponsors for cultural events, the time

seems ripe to think about creating an orchestra with a minimum number of 25 violinists, two-four tabla players, three rhythm artistes, a saxophone player, four sitar and sarod players, keyboardist, and a cello player. "The orchestra is likely to appeal to the audience because of its unique buildup and even if you pay the artistes a monthly payment of Taka 20,000 each, should be a viable venture for the sponsors,” he says.

"The role of sponsors is all the more important as, unlike the situation in India, the audience is very segmented in Bangladesh and creates a challenging proposition when you think of doing anything on a large scale! For instance, people who listen to Harano diner gaan don't listen to band music. Likewise, adhunik listeners often don't listen to folk albums. Generally speaking, lovers of Nazrul and Tagore songs also don't prefer to listen to other mainstream music. In India, in comparison there are over one lakh sales centres catering to a cross section of listeners. In fact for categories such as ghazals there are no less than five lakh listeners. Although the film soundtracks are the most saleable product, that too has huge international market," Shantonu adds.

“To develop this art form, one needs to look at it from a world-stage point of view. The instrument has been closely intertwined with the cultural scene for over centuries, and I see no reason why with the help of patrons, it cannot thrive for centuries more,” sums up the talented musician and composer.