Ritesh Khokhar

Domain: General Music Education Evangelist | Pianist | Music Entrepreneur | 

Genre: #WesternClassicalMusic #MusicEducation #Rock #Piano #Jazz #Pop

Location: India

Journey

INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC & SITAR

Ritesh Khokhar is popularly known for his outstanding contribution in music education in India, as he is the first person who set up a school that brought Classical music and rock music education under one roof, in 2005, with RockSchool, an graded exam board in the United Kingdom, and it’s actually the leading exam board for contemporary music, particularly rock and pop music. There was nothing like that, in India, at that time. He connected with fourteen schools in Delhi, to enroll 100 students and the exams started in India. In 2009, Ritesh Khokhar was appointed North India representative – Regional Manager (North India) (2009-2013) for ABRSM, Academic Consultant for Trinity College London (2013 – 2018) – designing and delivering teachers training programme, Country Manager and Director for RSL Awards (2018-2024).

His journey started during his school years, where he was very good at painting till he was in class 7, and he had to change his school thereafter, where the Arts department wasn’t that inclusive. They were only doing baatik and he was doing oil paintings, so they advised him to try music. And, the only working instrument in the music room, was a Sitar. Other instruments such as violin, and others were just lying around, not being cared for, properly.

So, he learned Sitar for six months in school, from Danish Khan, a disciple of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, when another student, who also played the Sitar challenged him that he couldn’t lead the orchestra. But Ritesh took the challenge and led the orchestra at which, this other boy sat behind Ritesh to play Sitar. So, basically, Danish Khan played both Sarod and Sitar, and he took these school kids to watch a concert of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Ustad Zakir Hussain, where Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi was a Chief Guest. Ritesh enjoyed these experiences a lot, and also performed at quite a few school-level competitions, in Sitar.

OF ENTHUSIASM AND OPEN-MINDEDNESS TOWARDS MUSIC

Now, one his friends, Prasanna, who plays drums and has been a musician with several Bollywood films now, and comes from Carnatic music background, was looking for a keyboard player to form the school band, and Ritesh volunteered to play keyboard. The annual rock show in his school was his first exposure to stage performance on keyboard. And, for the next seven years, he kept performing as a keyboard player with several bands. In 1997, he bought a big sized top-of-the-line keyboard that came with a touch-screen, and eventually became a band member with “Nirvana” that was originally formed in 1985.

Interestingly, Ritesh always had a penchant for appreciating multiple genres of music, so he has learned how to play bass guitar, electric guitar, drums, tabla, and even took taalim in Carnatic vocal music from learned Gurus, while he pursued his journey of learning piano more seriously and went to Delhi School of Music, for the same.

TRAINING HARD, PERFORMANCES AS A PIANIST, EARLY SUCCESS

Within two years of learning Piano, Ritesh was playing higher intermediate level, and he was also loved by all at the school, as he took the initiative to enable listening of great musicians’ piano, on the sound boxes, three to four days a week. He listened to and learned good Piano music, accompanied his teacher on Piano appreciation workshops, during 1998 to 2002, when he practiced 8 to 10 hours a day, when he was also pursuing computer science engineering; he did two years Diploma in software engineering. Also, he completed his Grade 8 certification, from ABRSM (one of five examination boards accredited by Ofqual to award graded exams and diploma qualifications in music within the UK’s National Qualifications Framework).

Ritesh had the privilege of studying piano under renowned teachers like Sir Hosie Palamkot, John Raphael, Geeta Uppal, and New York-based concert pianist Mr. Raj Bhimani. He further honed his skills through masterclasses with internationally acclaimed pianists such as Marialena Fernandes, Paul Stewart, and Boris Berman to name a few.

In 2002, he started ‘the creative workshop’, his first music school that he was opening, along with two of his friends, but it dissolved due to administrative issues, which led to formation of the Gurgaon School of Music, in 2003, and within a year, they had 100 students. In 2006, Ritesh started his own Jazz band, and continued working with Gurgaon School of Music till 2009 after it crossed a turnover of Rs. 1 Crore, while only running the Bridge Music Academy.

LEADERSHIP TO DRIVE CHANGE

Ritesh performed extensively with many Rock and Jazz bands in the 90s including Nirvana, Bluefunk and Bandish. He studied Piano and Theory of Music at Delhi School of Music where he was appointed as the first faculty for Electronic Keyboards in 2001. His passion for Jazz earned him a scholarship from Berklee College of Music in 2000. With 2 decades of performance and 15 years of teaching behind him, Ritesh claims to have learnt as much from his students as from his teachers.

In 2010, he joined a band called ‘Bandish’ that performed commercial Hindi rock songs and played keyboard for four years, with the band, including concerts in Bhutan for 10,000 audience. As a pianist he has performed as an accompanist with some of the leading sopranos and tenors in the city. He gave a solo recital at the German Embassy in New Delhi and also performed with the Indian National Youth Orchestra under the baton of Mr. Vijay Upadhyaya in 2011. He had the honour to perform with the Ao Church Choir for the President of India in 2013 at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

His 5 years of research into the Hungarian music education system enabled him to author the first series of music textbooks for public schools in India titled “Bridge to Music” in 2010. Apart from heading the Bridge Music Academy, Ritesh currently represents ROLAND as their Brand Ambassador, Supports Western Music Education Association in capacity of Vice-president and treasurer and is the Country Manager & Director for Rockschool London in India.

BUILDING A LEGACY IN MUSIC APPRECIATION WITH FOCUS IN EDUCATION

Ritesh’s musical journey is adorned with over 500 concert appearances, where he showcased his talent as a keyboard player, accompanist, solo pianist, and session musician with leading artists along with Rock and Jazz bands.

Many of his students are accomplished musicians now, including Anirudh Varma, of Anirudh Varma Collective. Anirudh was 6 years old, when he came to learn from Ritesh Khokhar, and Anirudh was always a composer. Anirudh played his own composition in initial grade exam at 7years of age, against the usual rules of the board, and on request of Ritesh, the board made an exception. Anirudh completed Grade 8 as a Pianist, with Ritesh Khokhar, and continued on his own, thereafter. Currently, Ritesh Khokhar is on a mission to improve the quality of music listeners in India, with his venture “Bridge to Music”.

As we all know, demand for quality musicians has to come from quality listeners and more aware audience. And, Ritesh believes that generating awareness must happen at school level. From his experience of school education in India, Ritesh believes there could be five times more musicians coming out of schools if there were proper general music education in school, curriculum of which, he says, should comprise of:

Awareness of the art form, basic understanding of getting a good command of pitch, understanding rhythms, basics of reading music, understanding different genres of music, and quality listening to good music including orchestras and symphonies.

Presently, even great teachers of music employed in schools are not teaching the right things, to inculcate such awareness of music in students. So, general music education is needed in schools, which is common in the UK and the USA. So, Ritesh has tied up with Los Angeles College of Music for teachers’ training module of the programme, and he has tied up with Charanga.com, an edtech platform for general music learning at schools, which is active in 64 countries, enabling 12,500 schools and 70,000 teachers. 70% of the ‘IB board’ schools in the UK are using Charanga, so it is easily replicable in IB schools in India. For other schools, Ritesh is working on arts integration concepts of the (National Education Policy) NEP 2020, for aligning of the learning goals, under the leadership of the course Director – Dr. Natalie Sarrazin, a Full Professor at College at Brockport, State University of New York, who holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Master’s degree in Music Education from Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Natalie Sarrazin has authored numerous books on music education, holds a Phd in Ethnomusicology and is a professor of Music Education at the College of Brockport (New York) for past 25 years.

The team at “Bridge to Music” is also involved in documentation of folk music from across the country, to make it available for teachers in school to teach in class. For example,

a teacher in Chennai could be teaching a song in Punjabi, thereby facilitating learning about culture of Punjab, learning about concepts of music, and may be learning concepts of science and maths, while doing it. The curriculum and teaching approach is totally integrated and completely inclusive.

Most importantly, this music programme is not just made for 5 to 10% of students who are musically inclined, but rather, it is designed for 100% of students because everybody should have music appreciation skills. Check their team page to know more about the project: https://www.bridgetomusic.in/site/our-team/

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