American sitar player influenced by Indian culture
Mary DeLoney
Issue date: 11/5/08 Section: Lifestyles
Andrew Mendelson, a visitor at the UA this past Monday, is an Arlington, Texas, native turned sitar-playing competitor turned New York City editor.
His passion for the sitar began when he was a freshman at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. He was walking through the student union there with his friends while an Indian cultural festival was going on.
"An Indian professor was playing the sitar and as I was passing the sound stopped me in my tracks," Mendelson said. "It was such a beautiful sound. Ever since then, I have kind of been obsessed."
He was then visiting a store in Ft. Worth and "out of curiosity asked the owner if they had sitars," he said. "The owner said they did not have any, but he could order me one.
"So we looked through a magazine and I found one and we ordered it. I did not know what to do with it when I got it. So I doodled around with it for a few years in college. After I moved to New York, I found a teacher and really started to dive in."
Mendelson had studied acting as an undergraduate and originally moved to New York to act. "I was in a few small productions, but [the] sitar really became my life," he said.
About five years ago he began working on his documentary film "A Cricket in the Court of Akbar," which chronicles the days leading up to Sri Mahendra Bhatt Music Competition in Jaipur, India that he completed and won. He is the only American sitar player to ever compete. That is a fact that Mendelson points out in his film.
"The film has relevance in the issue of globalization," he said. "Pop culture has traveled from West to East. Over there, they know who all of our pop stars are and they see our movies. There have been a few Bollywood movies to cross the pond, but most people know nothing about their culture. The film addresses how a Westerner has been influenced by a traditional art form from the East."
The film has now been screened three times, including once at the UA.
His passion for the sitar began when he was a freshman at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. He was walking through the student union there with his friends while an Indian cultural festival was going on.
"An Indian professor was playing the sitar and as I was passing the sound stopped me in my tracks," Mendelson said. "It was such a beautiful sound. Ever since then, I have kind of been obsessed."
He was then visiting a store in Ft. Worth and "out of curiosity asked the owner if they had sitars," he said. "The owner said they did not have any, but he could order me one.
"So we looked through a magazine and I found one and we ordered it. I did not know what to do with it when I got it. So I doodled around with it for a few years in college. After I moved to New York, I found a teacher and really started to dive in."
Mendelson had studied acting as an undergraduate and originally moved to New York to act. "I was in a few small productions, but [the] sitar really became my life," he said.
About five years ago he began working on his documentary film "A Cricket in the Court of Akbar," which chronicles the days leading up to Sri Mahendra Bhatt Music Competition in Jaipur, India that he completed and won. He is the only American sitar player to ever compete. That is a fact that Mendelson points out in his film.
"The film has relevance in the issue of globalization," he said. "Pop culture has traveled from West to East. Over there, they know who all of our pop stars are and they see our movies. There have been a few Bollywood movies to cross the pond, but most people know nothing about their culture. The film addresses how a Westerner has been influenced by a traditional art form from the East."
The film has now been screened three times, including once at the UA.
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