Pandit Taranath

Pandit Taranath Rama Rao Hattiangadi (1915 – 1991)
On March 6, 2025 tabla legend Pandit Taranath Rama Rao would have turned 110 years.

On the third track of our digital album TABLA, he talks a little about himself and his gurus. This release is a rare gem since he hardly did any recordings. Pandit Taranath is also taking an active part in our two albums “Live at Trinity Club – Bombay 1967” and “Tal Ashta Mangal/Trital – Bombay 1967” where he is playing the harmonium, reciting and leading his young disciples Sadanand Naimpalli and Mohan Balvalli thru some very exciting tabla stuff.

Pandit Taranath was also a great pakhawaj player, having played with all the members of the illustrious Dagar family. We have released a recording where he accompanies the great beenkar Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar (in fact its a rare thing in itself that Ustad is playing the lehra for the tabla solo – on sitar!) as part of the celebrations that will held under the auspices of the Peshkar Foundation which Panditji himself started and which is carried on by his disciples. There were concerts on the march 7-6 in Bombay as well as later during the year in his birthplace Mangalore, in Panjim and Poona where many of us disciples played.

More information on Pandit Taranath’s career in teaching and playing (including an impressive list of artists he accompanied that includes all the great musicians of the 20th century) Wikipedia and here is an article from 1990 about him from The Illustrated Weekly of India

The last track on the Tabla album is a short speech that he did in Stockholm in connection with this performance:

On Panditji’s centenary birthday he was felicitated with two days of concerts by his disciples, grand disciples and great grand disciples. Below you will find videos of all these concerts plus a documentary on Pandit Taranath put together by his disciples and various video shorts of him and the many students. Klick in the upper right corner to chose among the various videos.

On september 9, 2015, we released a rare recording from a private concert during the Stockholm visit in 1969 by Taranathji and Z.M. Dagar. In a long version of Chandrakauns there is a rare chance to hear his pakhawaj and the video playlist will open with a pakhavaj solo by him.

In August 2017 we are released an album with a recording from a private concert in Bombay 2017 where he is accompanying M. R. Gautam, CEX19

On November 1, 2019 we released yet one more album where Taranathji is playing. This is a live recording from 1966 and he accompanies sitar maestro Ustad Bale Khan of Gwalior and Kirana gharana in a private concert. The album is called Live in London 1966.

By clicking the album covers at the bottom of the page you will reach all these recordings

March 6, 2017, his 102nd birthday I’d shared a small message from him as he was leaving for the states for the first time in 1967. On the back of a photo I had taken of him he wrote some encouraging words like the true guru he was: