All of the content on this website (text, audio & video) is protected by international copyrights. All rights reserved. © 2007 Ken Zuckerman
Special thanks to:
Stefan Witschi (Satzladen), for his help and input in construction of this website and for his many years of creative graphic collaborations, including the CD artwork on “Hemant”, “Salon de Musique”, “Nature of Ragas”, as well as construction of the Ali Akbar College – Switzerland website.
Heiner Grieder, for his over 20 years of fine studio and live photo sessions. Most of the photos on this website have been taken by Heiner, who is not only an incredible photographer, but also a gifted musician and painter.
GDS Promotions (Gilda & Eddie Sebastian), for their many years of artistic promotion, encouragment and friendship.
My parents, Benjamin and Edith Zuckerman, for their unwavering support during my entire lifetime of searching for the “right stuff†in music.
My elder “music brother”, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, for his musical guidance and solidarity during many years and for his constant reminder of the noblest values in music and life.
My teacher, “guru†and second father, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, for all his years of patient teaching and tireless efforts to spread the great tradition of Indian classical music around the world.
Countless friends, family,teachers and students, who have appeared at important moments along the way to give help, encouragement, advice and love.
Information is not knowledge
Knowledge is not truth
Truth is not wisdom
Wisdom is not beauty
Beauty is not love
Love is not music
Music is the best.
Frank Zappa
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Music is the highest art, and to those who understand, is the highest worship. -Swami Vivekananda
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If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most of my enjoyment out of music. – Albert Einstein
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Music is the hidden exercise of a mathematical mind unconscious that it is calculating.
– Leibnitz, 1716
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And yet which of us has ever heard talk of art as other than a realm of freedom? This sort of heresy is uniformly widespread because it is imagined that art is outside the bounds of ordinary activity. Well, in art as in everything else, one can build only upon a resisting foundation: whatever constantly gives way to pressure, constantly renders movement impossible.
My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings.
I shall go even further: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint, diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.
Igor Stravinsky, from Poetics of Music (Harvard University Press, 1974)
