The Group CHAAR YAAR came into existence about 9 years ago. As the name suggests, it comprises four musicians – namely, the elderly composer, vocalist and poet Madan Gopal Singh; the ace guitarist and banjo player Deepak Castelino; the young and soulful sarod player Pritam Ghosal and an equally young and energetic multiple persussionist Gurmeet Singh. Initially, the group traversed the path of Sufi texts dating back to the 12-13th century beginning with Baba Farid and Rumi and ending with Khwaja Ghulam Farid of the late 19th c. Very soon, however, the group started looking at the cultural bridges across continents. This involved experimenting with songs and poetry spread across various cultures globally and across different timelines. It led to the incorporation of music and poetry as diverse as that of Brecht, Lorca, Tagore, Puran Singh, Hikmet, Hamzatov, Faiz, Nagarjun on the one hand and the making of musical bridges, to give but one example, between Rumi, John Lennon, Kabir and Bulle Shah in the same song. This also saw the group musically following original translations by Madan Gopal Singh. An indigenous Baramaah in Punjabi, for example, could now be sung with Simon and Garfunkel’s canticle 'Scarborough Fair’ or John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ as ‘Socho Zara’ or Beatles ‘Because’ with Iqbal’s ‘Ye Gumbad-e-Minai’. The project has since continued to grow and the group has travelled all over the world many times over performing with many internationally celebrated groups such as All Star 'Bang on a Can' of New York; the neo-Jazz vocalist Theo Bleckmann; David Hykes’ Harmonic Choir and many many more. For more details please visit www.pritamsarod.in