It’s the first time that a sitar player has been named Instrumentalist of the Year at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards in the category’s 34-year history – and Jasdeep Singh Degun is delighted. And shocked. ‘It was truly surprising,’ the British player tells me. ‘It doesn’t happen to Indian Classical musicians, especially someone like little old me from Leeds. I feel like they’re not just spotlighting me but the entire Indian Classical community.’
Jasdeep Singh Degun might be ‘very humbled’ by the award, but it’s fair to say he’s had a memorable year. It kicked off in September 2022 (when the RPS judging period opens) with Orpheus, produced by Opera North, where he was artist in residence, and South Asian Arts UK. This reimagining of Monteverdi’s Orfeo brought together Indian Classical and European Baroque traditions, setting the opera during a multi-cultural wedding in a Leeds back garden. It was, in the words of The Stage, an ‘outstanding cross-cultural success’ – and it was also shortlisted for the RPS’s Large-Scale Composition award this year. The rest of the season saw Degun tour his debut album Anomaly, release a single from Orpheus, be nominated for an Ivor Novello Award and, most importantly, ‘I got engaged as well!’
How Jasdeep Singh Degun came to the sitar
The RPS panel particularly commended Degun for ‘showing us all the beauty and boundless possibilities of the sitar’. Yet it wasn’t where Degun’s musical life began. In fact, he only took the sitar up at the relatively late age of 15, when he began studying with a ‘very inspirational’ teacher and mentor, Ustad Dharambir Singh. He’d learned to sing at primary school and that vocal training didn’t go to waste when he fell in love with his new instrument. ‘I’m a man of melody,’ he says, explaining that he trained in a school of sitar playing that prizes a singing style.
The appeal of the sitar: improvisation and flexibility
For Jasdeep Singh Degun, the sitar has ‘boundless capabilities and possibilities for doing all the embellishments of Indian Classical music. You have to be like a vocalist to be a sitar player. The life of the instrument comes from the pulling of the string.’ He’s carved out a career as a solo concert soloist, bringing the sitar to audiences around the UK and Europe – but it’s not the only hat he wears. Being a sitar player means being a master of improvisation too.
‘Ninety per cent of a traditional Indian Classical concert will be improvised on the spot, but within very strict parameters of melody and rhythm,’ he explains, ‘so it always goes beyond mastering just your instrument – it’s also mastering the thought process.’ And even that is only part of the story. ‘I grew up in England and do a lot of contemporary work, so I’m a contemporary classical composer as well,’ says Degun. ‘I think that’s where my forte lies: in bringing the two worlds together in a way that’s nuanced and not reductionist.’
Creating crossovers with Western classical music
Collaborating with Western classical musicians is hugely important to Jasdeep Singh Degun, yet it hasn’t always been easy. ‘I’ve had some really bad experiences. One composer wrote me stuff that was completely unplayable, because they didn’t understand the instrument. And the conductor was slightly racist and misogynistic as well,’ he says. ‘I was ready to leave, but instead I stayed and rewrote all the parts myself. I realised at that moment that I need to be able to speak both languages fluently to find ways to bring them together more seamlessly.’
This was at the forefront of his mind when he became involved with Orpheus at Opera North, for which he composed music as well as being a music director and playing sitar. He knew it couldn’t just be ‘Monteverdi with Indian embellishments tacked on’; half needed to be composed Indian music. ‘Everyone had good intentions, but it was probably the hardest project I’ve done,’ he says. ‘An opera company moves like a lorry, while I move like a Mini Cooper. But it was also a dream to do. The audience reaction, the showcasing of Indian Classical music alongside Monteverdi: I’m very proud of what we achieved.’
Top image credit: Adam Lyons
