Saskia De Haas-Rao, Delhi

A brilliant young cellist from the Netherlands, Saskia is one of the very few artistes who can perform both western classical music and North Indian classical music on the cello. She approaches both with equal ease and understanding because of her strong foundation in the former, complemented with a passionate involvement with the latter. With no precedent to follow, Saskia has worked with singular dedication to adapt the cello to Indian classical music.

Saskia is now based in Delhi with her husband Shubhendra Rao, well-known sitarist of the Maihar gharana, from whom she continues to learn the finer intricacies of Indian music. They compose and play together pieces that are based purely on Indian classical ragas as well as compositions in which their different musical backgrounds are explored.

Could you give a brief background about yourself? What kindled an interest in Indian Classical Music?
I'm from Holland and started playing the Cello when I was 7 years old. I belong to a family that plays music. I was born to play the Cello for a living that was quite clear. After completing my master’s in ethnomusicology from the university of Amsterdam, I got interested in Indian music through my conservatory in Rotterdam, in Holland where Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia has been teaching for four months a year. I was very inspired by his music and decided to learn Indian classical music which brought me to India in 1995 for the first time. Here, I studied Indian music and its theory to complete my thesis and learnt the basics of Indian classical music from Dr Sumati Mutatkar. I have also studied under eminent artistes such as Pt D.K. Datar of Bombay and Pt Deepak Chowdhury of Calcutta.

Tell us more about the Cello. How have you adpated it for Indiam classical music?
Since I was the only one who played the Cello, I had to develop my own techniques through different teachers. The music would be taught but the technical aspect was something I had to explore for myself through research and modifications. I play a smaller Cello and have introduced 10 sympathetic strings to adapt to indian music. All by trial and error. Its a mixture between the Cello of rennaissance times and an Indian instrument.

How did this unique combination of the Sitar and Cello come together on stage?
Well, after our marriage, a natural progression was that we should also start working together on stage. We did initially put in a lot of thought how we'd make it work since we didn't want to call it fusion music, or anything else, but much more on a deeper level. So we started working on composing our own music based on Indian Rags, European folk music and Western Court Progressions. We made an attempt and its worked out very well. We have had great feedbacks and so we look towards a good future in this kind of endeavour.

What are your aspirations as to your art?
Well it definitely would be to work towards making Cello secure a permanent place in the world of Indian music.

Interviewed by our team member, Shruti Nanavaty

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