Tara Anand Bangalore started learning to sing Carnatic music at the age of four, studying with leading teachers in both New Delhi and Madras. Vocal music is the main emphasis of Carnatic music, which evolved from Hindu traditions hundreds of years ago in southern India. The building blocks of Carnatic music are the śruti "musical pitch", swara "musical sound of a single note", raga "melodic scale", and tala "rhythmic cycle." Tara has practiced this art form for more than forty years and for the last two decades has taught at the school she founded in 1989, the Anubhava School of Music. She has become one of the stalwarts in Carnatic music and a leading vocalist in the Greater Boston area.
Pratik Bharadwaj began his study under Tara as a very young child. Over the past seven years he has excelled at the technical aspects of Carnatic music. He has an incredible sense of manodharma (creativity) for a student of his age.
Their apprenticeship will focus on Pallavis, as these need a very strong rhythmic and technical grasp. He will also put in many hours watching Tara teach others, as a way of learning how to approach teaching juniors. Given Pratik's grasp of rhythmic nuances, she will have him train under a percussionist to learn more complex mathematical combinations to use in his music.
