Bansuri beyond boundaries

Strap: Renowned flutist Lyon Leifer breathes life into the Hindustani and the Western flute

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Krishnaraj Iyengar

Born to keyboard masters and raised in a rich musical environment, internationally renowned flutist Lyon Leifer dabbled with several instruments before he found his calling, the flute. Having learnt under renowned maestros like Chicago’s Walfrid Kujala and Julius Baker at New York’s Juilliard School, he began with playing at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. After a tryst with Hindustani music, he remains one of the world’s leading Bansuri exponents. Currently in India on a Fulbright-Nehru research award to compare Bansuri styles, Leifer recently performed at the prestigious Sangit Mahabharati conservatoire in Mumbai.

What drew you to Hindustani flute?

In New York I was exposed to a recording of Ustad Bismillah Khan’s shehnai. That got the ball rolling. I started collecting LP records, including some of Vilayat and Imrat Khan’s jugalbandi, Sharan Rani’s sarod, Balachander’s veena and a few compilations with, maybe one bansuri cut by an unidentified player. This was all I could access at the time (around 1963). There was no live Indian music in New York at the timefor me todiscover. The music had a tremendous impact. I decided to go for a Fulbright to try to learn.

When I got the grant, I was sent by what was then United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) to Pandit Devendra Murdeshwar who required that I commit to studying for several years. He gave me daily taleemin the guru-shiya parampara but in modern terms. He helped get my scholarship extended and renewed by enabling me to perform raga music in a short time, arranging my public performance, getting critics to come and write on it, all of which made the value of my ongoing study apparent. An affectionate guru-shishya rapport developed between us. I practised his material rigorously.

A few words about the great contribution of Pandit Pannalal Ghosh…

Pannalalji is the lodestar of bansuri. Every player agrees. Without him there would be no bansuri as a concert instrument in Hindustani music. YouTube has some of his finest recordings, making it possible for contemporary listeners to appreciate the unmatched depth of feeling his music conveys, as well as the deeply classical nature of his approach combined with wonderful liveliness.

How do you bridge the gap between Indian and western flute and also between both repertoires and styles?

At this point, it’s something like “shifting gears”. I learned each genre in the traditional manner from great teachers and I think the deep musical background and lifestyle I was born into, gave me an inner awareness of the soul of music, whether it is of East or West.

Picking up and practising the proper instrument at this point just seems to let me play with a necessary sense of style, and to be expressive in terms of each genre. It has been harder for me to reach a sense of authenticity in raga music, perhaps due to not having been born into the culture and its sound world. But all credit to my dear guruji for his great patience and insistence that I could play this music at a high level. I also am deeply grateful to the lovers of the music who have found my bansuri to be authentic and satisfying.

How do you relate spiritually to the flute?

I find the instrument’s sound deeply affecting. The flute is one of the world’s oldest and most widespread instruments. I feel a strong connection between what I hear in the greatest players’ music, especially Pannalji’s and that of my guru, and my own deepest emotionality and innermost strivings.