Guy Beck
Encyclopedia
Dr. Guy L. Beck is a scholar, author, historian of religions, musicologist, and musician. He is presently Lecturer in Religious Studies
in the School of Continuing Studies at Tulane University
, and Instructor in the Philosophy Department at the University of New Orleans
. He has a Ph.D.
in Religion, South Asia from Syracuse University
, a graduate degree in Musicology
(M.A.) from Syracuse University and an M.A. in Religious Studies
from the University of South Florida
. Dr. Beck is the author of Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound (University of South Carolina Press, 1993) where he examined Hindu theology relative to sacred sound, and Sonic Liturgy: Ritual and Music in Hindu Tradition (University of South Carolina Press, 2011). He has also published, as editor, Alternative Krishna
s: Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu
Deity
(SUNY Press, 2005), where he looks at the Krishnology of the Vaishnava sect
known as the Radhavallabha Sampradaya
. His recently edited volume, Sacred Sound: Experiencing Music in World Religions (Wilfrid Laurier University Press
, 2006), includes a CD of forty selections of world religious chant and music ("....highly recommended," CHOICE). As an archivist of devotional music, Dr. Beck has compiled, edited, and recorded 108 Samaj Gayan songs of the Radhavallabha Sampradaya in the book and collection of 18 CD's entitled Vaishnava Temple Music in Vrindaban: The Radhavallabha Songbook (Blazing Sapphire Press, 2011). During 1992-1993, under a Fulbright Research Grant, Beck studied Haveli Sangit and Samaj Gayan, two genres of devotional music allied with Dhrupad, from stalwart musicians in Vrindaban and Mathura. In addition, Beck has written many articles on Indian religion and music, such as found in reputed reference works like Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts, and Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, South Asia volume.
When Beck was a Visiting Fellow for three months at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
in England during the fall of 2001, he delivered the Michaelmas Lectures on Hinduism and Music, and also taught a graduate seminar in ethnomusicology for Oxford University. During this time, he also received a grant from the Infinity Foundation for research and study in England on the Indic influences on world religious chant and music.
Guy Beck performs Hindustani vocal classical music
and has released two CDs: Sacred Raga
(New Orleans: STR Digital Records, 1999) and Sanjher Pradip (Calcutta: Bihaan Music, 2004). Originally studying under Sangeetacharya Sri Sailen Banerjee of the Tansen Music College in Calcutta (1975-1980), he has continued his training at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy (SRA), founded in Calcutta in 1978. At SRA, he has studied under Pandit Arun Bhaduri (Guru) and Pandit Vijay Kichlu (Founding Director/Guru). Sri Sailen Banerjee, Hindustani vocalist and organizer of the famous Tansen Music Conferences since the 1940's, was a disciple of Ustad Dabir Khan, the last hereditary descendent of Mian Tansen, the legendary singer at the court of Emperor Akbar in the sixteenth century. Beck has also learned Dhrupad from the famed Dagar Brothers in New Delhi, and at the Chhandam Institute of Dhrupad in Calcutta. He has since performed in several national music conferences in India, at Fulbright House (New Delhi), Visvabharati Shantiniketan University, ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Shantipur Ragini, and Nad Music Circle in Burdwan (West Bengal). On record, he is the first American vocalist to have appeared in a national Indian music conference (Tansen Music Conference, 1977) of Hindustani music, and one of the first Westerners to earn a vocal music degree ("Sangit Bivakar," 1980) from an Indian institution. Having also appeared on Doordarshan
(Indian TV) and Radio Nepal
, Beck has taught several students the art of Hindustani vocal music, and frequently gives lectures and demonstrations on American college campuses and other venues. For a brief history of Hindustani music and an overview of his musical training, see the article, "The Magic of Hindu Music," in Hinduism Today (October 2007, pp. 20-31).
For further studies in Hindustani music, Beck was awarded a Senior Performing Arts Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies (A.I.I.S.) in 2008. In 2010, he was the recipient of a US Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship for the study of the Agra Gharana, the oldest and richest tradition of Hindustani vocal music extending back to its roots in Dhrupad of the fourteenth century. For this research and training, he was affiliated with the ITC Sangeet Research Academy under the guidance of Pandit Vijay Kichlu. Vijay Kichlu and his brother Ravi Kichlu ("Kichlu Brothers"), as disciples of the Dagar Brothers, were once popular concert and radio artists of Dhrupad and Khyal according to the Agra Gharana. Vijay Kichlu, as a disciple of Ustad Latafat Husain Khan, remains a highly-respected vocalist and authority in Hindustani vocal music and the Agra Gharana. Beck was also assisted in this work by Vidushi Purnima Sen (disciple of Ustad Atta Husain Khan), Dr. Tapasi Ghosh (Calcutta University, disciple of Pandit D. T. Joshi), and Waseem Ahmed Khan (grandson of Ustad Atta Husain Khan and family member of Agra Gharana).
During the post-Katrina academic years of 2005-2007, Dr. Beck taught Asian religions at University of North Carolina at Wilmington and University of Mississippi (as Croft Visiting Assistant Professor)]. In the fall of 2008, he resumed teaching Asian Studies and Religious Studies at Tulane University, and also began teaching courses in the Philosophy Department at the University of New Orleans.
In August, 2011, Beck was invited as a participant in the prestigious Eranos Conferences held in Ascona, Switzerland. The Eranos Conferences were inaugurated by psychologist C. G. Jung in the early 1930's, and hosted intellectuals and scholars like Rudolf Otto, Karl Kerenyi, Mircea Eliade, author Hermann Hesse, and many others over the years. The theme of the 2011 meeting was "Love and the Musical Arts," and was organized by the Fetzer Institute under the direction of Dr. Lawrence Sullivan (Harvard University, Professor Emeritus). At this meeting Beck discussed and performed "Ragas of Love: Devotional Music in the Hindu Tradition."
Brought up in a musical family, Guy began his musical training in classical piano and choral singing in upstate New York. His father, Harold Cooke, was a noted New York City pianist, composer, and Broadway vocal music arranger during the 1940's and 1950's, working for composer Harold Arlen, and later songstress Kate Smith. Cooke was the vocal arranger for the 1940 Broadway revue, Two for the Show, that included the first appearance, sung by Alfred Drake, of the song, "How High the Moon" (lyrics and music by Nancy Hamilton and Morgan Lewis). While pianist at the famous Blue Angel supper club in Manhattan, Harold Cooke accompanied celebrity singers like Judy Garland, Kay Thompson, Kaye Ballard, Russell Nype, and Andy Williams. Both hailing from Minneapolis, Cooke was a lifelong friend and colleague of piano legend Cy Walter (www.cywalter.com). In 1958, Guy's mother, an interior designer with Raymond Loewy in New York, remarried George A. Beck, an industrial designer with General Electric Company and later of George A. Beck Associates. In India in 1979, Guy married Kajal Dass, Bengali artist and eldest grand-daughter of pioneer industrialist, Alamohan Dass of Dassnagar, Howrah (West Bengal).
http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/books/2011/7037.html
http://www.radhavallabha-songbook.com
http://www.eranosfoundation.org/basic_pdf/EF2011_FetzerMusicalArts.pdf
http://www.aarweb.org/publications/spotlight/Teaching/indexmain.asp
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/sacred_sounds_of_guy_beck_111109/http://tulane.edu/news/newwave/010510_fulbrights.cfm
Religious studies
Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.While theology attempts to...
in the School of Continuing Studies at Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
, and Instructor in the Philosophy Department at the University of New Orleans
University of New Orleans
The University of New Orleans, often referred to locally as UNO, is a medium-sized public urban university located on the New Orleans Lakefront within New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is a member of the LSU System and the Urban 13 association. Currently UNO is without a proper chancellor...
. He has a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in Religion, South Asia from Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
, a graduate degree in Musicology
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
(M.A.) from Syracuse University and an M.A. in Religious Studies
Religious studies
Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.While theology attempts to...
from the University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
. Dr. Beck is the author of Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound (University of South Carolina Press, 1993) where he examined Hindu theology relative to sacred sound, and Sonic Liturgy: Ritual and Music in Hindu Tradition (University of South Carolina Press, 2011). He has also published, as editor, Alternative Krishna
Krishna
Krishna is a central figure of Hinduism and is traditionally attributed the authorship of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the supreme Being and considered in some monotheistic traditions as an Avatar of Vishnu...
s: Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
Deity
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
(SUNY Press, 2005), where he looks at the Krishnology of the Vaishnava sect
Sect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
known as the Radhavallabha Sampradaya
Sampradaya
In Hinduism, a sampradaya can be translated as ‘tradition’ or a ‘religious system’, although the word commands much more respect and power in the Indian context than its translations in English does...
. His recently edited volume, Sacred Sound: Experiencing Music in World Religions (Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, based in Waterloo, Ontario, is a publisher of scholarly writing and is part of Wilfrid Laurier University. The fourth-largest university press in Canada, WLUP publishes work in a variety of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences — literary criticism,...
, 2006), includes a CD of forty selections of world religious chant and music ("....highly recommended," CHOICE). As an archivist of devotional music, Dr. Beck has compiled, edited, and recorded 108 Samaj Gayan songs of the Radhavallabha Sampradaya in the book and collection of 18 CD's entitled Vaishnava Temple Music in Vrindaban: The Radhavallabha Songbook (Blazing Sapphire Press, 2011). During 1992-1993, under a Fulbright Research Grant, Beck studied Haveli Sangit and Samaj Gayan, two genres of devotional music allied with Dhrupad, from stalwart musicians in Vrindaban and Mathura. In addition, Beck has written many articles on Indian religion and music, such as found in reputed reference works like Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts, and Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, South Asia volume.
When Beck was a Visiting Fellow for three months at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, founded in 1997, is a Recognised Independent Centre of Oxford University. The Centre is engaged in developing academic programmes of education, research and publishing in the field of Hindu studies...
in England during the fall of 2001, he delivered the Michaelmas Lectures on Hinduism and Music, and also taught a graduate seminar in ethnomusicology for Oxford University. During this time, he also received a grant from the Infinity Foundation for research and study in England on the Indic influences on world religious chant and music.
Guy Beck performs Hindustani vocal classical music
Hindustani classical music
Hindustani classical music is the Hindustani or North Indian style of Indian classical music found throughout the northern Indian subcontinent. The style is sometimes called North Indian Classical Music or Shāstriya Sangeet...
and has released two CDs: Sacred Raga
Raga
A raga is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.It is a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is made...
(New Orleans: STR Digital Records, 1999) and Sanjher Pradip (Calcutta: Bihaan Music, 2004). Originally studying under Sangeetacharya Sri Sailen Banerjee of the Tansen Music College in Calcutta (1975-1980), he has continued his training at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy (SRA), founded in Calcutta in 1978. At SRA, he has studied under Pandit Arun Bhaduri (Guru) and Pandit Vijay Kichlu (Founding Director/Guru). Sri Sailen Banerjee, Hindustani vocalist and organizer of the famous Tansen Music Conferences since the 1940's, was a disciple of Ustad Dabir Khan, the last hereditary descendent of Mian Tansen, the legendary singer at the court of Emperor Akbar in the sixteenth century. Beck has also learned Dhrupad from the famed Dagar Brothers in New Delhi, and at the Chhandam Institute of Dhrupad in Calcutta. He has since performed in several national music conferences in India, at Fulbright House (New Delhi), Visvabharati Shantiniketan University, ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Shantipur Ragini, and Nad Music Circle in Burdwan (West Bengal). On record, he is the first American vocalist to have appeared in a national Indian music conference (Tansen Music Conference, 1977) of Hindustani music, and one of the first Westerners to earn a vocal music degree ("Sangit Bivakar," 1980) from an Indian institution. Having also appeared on Doordarshan
DoorDarshan
Doordarshan is an Indian public service broadcaster, a division of Prasar Bharati. It is one of the largest broadcasting organizations in India in terms of the infrastructure of studios and transmitters. Recently, it has also started Digital Terrestrial Transmitters. On September 15, 2009,...
(Indian TV) and Radio Nepal
Radio Nepal
Radio Nepal was established on 1 April 1951. Initially, the transmission lasted for 4 hours and 30 minutes through a 250 Watt short-wave transmitter. Over the years, Radio Nepal has strengthened its institutional capacity considerably and diversified itself in terms of programme format, technical...
, Beck has taught several students the art of Hindustani vocal music, and frequently gives lectures and demonstrations on American college campuses and other venues. For a brief history of Hindustani music and an overview of his musical training, see the article, "The Magic of Hindu Music," in Hinduism Today (October 2007, pp. 20-31).
For further studies in Hindustani music, Beck was awarded a Senior Performing Arts Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies (A.I.I.S.) in 2008. In 2010, he was the recipient of a US Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship for the study of the Agra Gharana, the oldest and richest tradition of Hindustani vocal music extending back to its roots in Dhrupad of the fourteenth century. For this research and training, he was affiliated with the ITC Sangeet Research Academy under the guidance of Pandit Vijay Kichlu. Vijay Kichlu and his brother Ravi Kichlu ("Kichlu Brothers"), as disciples of the Dagar Brothers, were once popular concert and radio artists of Dhrupad and Khyal according to the Agra Gharana. Vijay Kichlu, as a disciple of Ustad Latafat Husain Khan, remains a highly-respected vocalist and authority in Hindustani vocal music and the Agra Gharana. Beck was also assisted in this work by Vidushi Purnima Sen (disciple of Ustad Atta Husain Khan), Dr. Tapasi Ghosh (Calcutta University, disciple of Pandit D. T. Joshi), and Waseem Ahmed Khan (grandson of Ustad Atta Husain Khan and family member of Agra Gharana).
During the post-Katrina academic years of 2005-2007, Dr. Beck taught Asian religions at University of North Carolina at Wilmington and University of Mississippi (as Croft Visiting Assistant Professor)]. In the fall of 2008, he resumed teaching Asian Studies and Religious Studies at Tulane University, and also began teaching courses in the Philosophy Department at the University of New Orleans.
In August, 2011, Beck was invited as a participant in the prestigious Eranos Conferences held in Ascona, Switzerland. The Eranos Conferences were inaugurated by psychologist C. G. Jung in the early 1930's, and hosted intellectuals and scholars like Rudolf Otto, Karl Kerenyi, Mircea Eliade, author Hermann Hesse, and many others over the years. The theme of the 2011 meeting was "Love and the Musical Arts," and was organized by the Fetzer Institute under the direction of Dr. Lawrence Sullivan (Harvard University, Professor Emeritus). At this meeting Beck discussed and performed "Ragas of Love: Devotional Music in the Hindu Tradition."
Brought up in a musical family, Guy began his musical training in classical piano and choral singing in upstate New York. His father, Harold Cooke, was a noted New York City pianist, composer, and Broadway vocal music arranger during the 1940's and 1950's, working for composer Harold Arlen, and later songstress Kate Smith. Cooke was the vocal arranger for the 1940 Broadway revue, Two for the Show, that included the first appearance, sung by Alfred Drake, of the song, "How High the Moon" (lyrics and music by Nancy Hamilton and Morgan Lewis). While pianist at the famous Blue Angel supper club in Manhattan, Harold Cooke accompanied celebrity singers like Judy Garland, Kay Thompson, Kaye Ballard, Russell Nype, and Andy Williams. Both hailing from Minneapolis, Cooke was a lifelong friend and colleague of piano legend Cy Walter (www.cywalter.com). In 1958, Guy's mother, an interior designer with Raymond Loewy in New York, remarried George A. Beck, an industrial designer with General Electric Company and later of George A. Beck Associates. In India in 1979, Guy married Kajal Dass, Bengali artist and eldest grand-daughter of pioneer industrialist, Alamohan Dass of Dassnagar, Howrah (West Bengal).
External links
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=1515http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/books/2011/7037.html
http://www.radhavallabha-songbook.com
http://www.eranosfoundation.org/basic_pdf/EF2011_FetzerMusicalArts.pdf
http://www.aarweb.org/publications/spotlight/Teaching/indexmain.asp
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/sacred_sounds_of_guy_beck_111109/http://tulane.edu/news/newwave/010510_fulbrights.cfm
- http://www.strdigital.com/beck.htm
- http://www.bihaanmusic.com/guy-beck.htm
- http://www.wlu.ca/press/Catalog/beck.shtml
- http://www.itcsra.org/sra_story/sra_story_scholars/visiting_research_scholars.html