My ancestral home is one the coast near Karwar and the Deogad lighthouse; and so the sea evokes very strong imagery of different kinds. Its surges, ebbs and tides find parallels in music. The sea is a world of its own; within its aquamarine depths is birth, evolution, life. The seas were also traditional highways for trade and the intercontinental flow of peoples and cultures. Coasts were point of contact, settlement and fusions, as in Gujarat and Goa, and the great trading ports were meeting place for East and West, for India, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Music, Its instruments and rhythms, also traveled, like the sea itself.

All these abstract concepts have formed the basis of my compositions. Such a wide canvas led me to a painter’s approach, sketching and filling out not only the melody line but also that of tonal colour, using a rich palette of the colours of sound through the use of a variety of instruments, both acoustic and electronic.

The moods and feelings of the sea are here in these pictures in sound- the colours in Seascapes that change from turquoise to jade, while on the horizon things appear and disappear; the nostalgic, old-world harmonies of the Palka with its distinctly Goan-Portuguese air; the deceptively simple beginning and increasingly complex patterns of Deep Blue that end with the crash of waters against rock, a reminder of the mystery and power of the sea.

--BHASKAR CHANAVERKAR