About Bageshree
Bageshree is a studio album of North Indian classical music performed by sitarist Subroto Roy Chowdhury. The label Tiptoe released the recording on compact disc in 1995 as an official commercial publication. The album centers on renditions of Raga Bageshree and Raga Shree (presented as Singhi Bhairavi), structured across six tracks that feature both instrumental exposition and vocal-influenced aochar and sadra compositions.
The album opens with a four-part exploration of Raga Bageshree, divided sequentially as Raga Bageshree Part 1 through Part 4. These tracks progress through the traditional alaap-jor-jhala framework, followed by thematic development in madhyalaya and drut tempos. The final two tracks shift to Raga Shree, labeled here as Singhi Bhairavi Aochar and Singhi Bhairavi Sadra. The aochar segment emphasizes melodic phrasing aligned with the dhrupad style, while the sadra incorporates rhythmic interplay characteristic of the khayal form.
Subroto Roy Chowdhury performs on sitar, accompanied by an unspecified ensemble of tanpura and percussion. The recording captures a live-studio ambiance, though specific session details—including accompanying artists, recording location, or production personnel—remain undocumented in available sources. The album’s liner notes, if included in the original CD release, are not widely archived.
The 1995 release date coincides with Roy Chowdhury’s period of active performance and recording in the 1990s, during which he contributed to both solo and collaborative projects within the Etawah gharana tradition. Bageshree stands as one of his few commercially distributed recordings under the Tiptoe label, which specialized in Indian classical and fusion music during the decade. No reissues or digital remasters of the album have been confirmed as of the latest available records.