In the words of India's renowned musician Ravi Shanker: "The improvisatory nature of Indian classical music requires the artist before playing to take into consideration the setting, the time allowed for his recital, his mood and the feeling he discerns in the audience. Since Indian music is religious in origin, it is spiritual in performance. The dazzling and rapid dialogue between sitar and tabla has the power to enthrall even the most uninitiated listener with its thrilling interplay."
Sitarist Sushma Omata embraces accepted definitions, descriptions and aspirations of Indian classical music. She says that its basis is nature, and its heart the raga, the melodic form on which the artist improvises as he plays. The musician gives emotional interpretation to his feelings for the seasons and times of day, for the elements, and people's relationships to their gods and each other. With no written notation, each performance is the product of the musician's own imagination and creativity. It is always different, exciting and joyful.
Sushma, a native of Nepal, several years ago married a Japanese man and came to live in Tokyo. Her name in Sanscrit means Rising Sun. She came from a propertied family in the mountainous kingdom, where life for her in her girlhood was undemanding and slow-paced.