Suchita Parte is the first artist I am sponsoring.

Now, let me be blunt. A good deal of singing in Sanskrit sounds very stuffy. I’m talking about work which is technically flawless but sounds like it has been recorded 2000 years ago. It is fine but it does not sound very engaging. And this is a best case scenario because additionally there are the atrocious recordings of Westerners who took one Sanskrit class one day and then styled themselves Sanskrit signers. Their heavy Western accent sucks all the elegance out of Sanskrit.

Suchita Parte has broken out of the old stuffy molds. Her singing is grounded in tradition but not confined by it. Her rendition of Vedasārashivastotram is the most beautiful I’ve heard. You can listen to it and to her entire album on Magnatune.

I’ve added a new category of links and a new category of posts to publicize the artists I sponsor. The idea is similar to the “Sponsored OSS” box I recently added. The Sponsored Artist category will only include artists who meet two criteria. First, they have to make their work available on the Internet without any DRM. I’m not interested in those who sell DRM-encumbered files. Second, they have to produce music I like so much that I want to pay for it. This is why I call this “sponsorship”. I could be taking their music and not pay anything but artists have to live. So I’m sponsoring them by paying for their music even though there is no mechanism in place to force me to pay. Reread this last sentence 200 times and it’ll start to make sense.

Update: I wrote the post saying “music” because I had music in mind when I wrote my post. It could eventually also cover books, movies, etc.