'Young musicians need media coverage'

Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain feels that media gives coverage only to the scions of illustrious musicians.

Despite the country having enough pool of young music talents, there is very little awareness about them in the society due to poor media coverage, tabla maestro Zakir Hussain said today. "There is a lot of young music talent in the country who are capable of taking forward the legacy of Indian classical music. They need to be pushed forward to preserve our artistic heritage. This requires better media coverage of these upcoming talents," Hussain told reporters here.

Citing example of cricket he said that as young players were taking over from "older masters", similarly there were artistes who performed better than current generation of musicians and time had come for them to take over the mantle.

"I am aware of at least 50 tabla players who play better than me. But the media gives coverage to only a handful of such young artistes like Anoushka Shankar, Ayan and Abhas Ali, Rahul Sharma...All children of illustrious fathers. Other equally talented but lesser known artistes remain in oblivion," the maestro said.

These artistes must get settled in our lifetime, he said. He was speaking at the press meet for announcing music concert titled Heartbeats, to be held here on February 12. The event includes different blends of Indian music using both Indian and Western instruments. Artistes like Zakir Hussain, Mandolin maestro U Shrinivas, percussionist Sivamani and Shankar Mahadevan would perform together for the first time in Mumbai.