Malimba moon shastro biography

Shastro is a multi-instrumentalist, born in Italy.
Malimba Moon – the name stuck – and my record label became Malimba Records.
Combining his "nouveau flamenco" guitar with flutes, vocal harmonies, and ethnic percussion, Shastro creates an exquisite blend of Latin rhythms and world music.

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Satsang

Chinmaya reviews Shastro’s latest album.

Satsang marks a departure for Shastro from most of what he has done before. Finally his love affair with Indian instrumentation (dating back thirty years to a chance meeting with a baba selling flutes outside the Osho Commune in Pune) and used as colour and timbre on so many of his recordings, bears fruit in music that does more than nod to India.

The CD is a culmination of a remarkable quarter century as composer and recording artist, which has resulted in the release of fifteen albums and covered a wide range of musical territory. Putting Satsang in context requires that I take this opportunity of first reviewing and celebrating the career of someone who is both a close friend and a musician I admire.

Shastro tells me that before arriving in India for the first time in 1986, he played guitar and wrote songs in Italy, with Dylan and Cat Stevens as his models. Based on the dominant output of his first ten years, I’ll bet he didn’t sound like either! There must surely be some Latino in his blood or past lives, becaus

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Artist: Shastro
Website: www.malimba.com/shastro

Multi-instrumentalist Shastro, who was born in Venice, Italy, has spent a good part of his life traveling the world on a quest for musical and spiritual inspiration. Although he began his professional career as a fashion photographer, all that changed one day on a crowded street in India. In 1985, Shastro left Italy to live in a spiritual community in India. As he describes: “I saw along the street a young Indian boy selling bamboo flutes. Without hesitation I bought one for 50 cents and I remember distinctly a voice inside me that said ‘now you will no longer be a photographer but a musician.’ After having bought that flute, day after day, month after month, I blew on the little flute trying to learn how to obtain different sounds. Eventually I learned the tabla drums, and then dilruba and sitar. Well one instrument leads to another and within a few years I had a large ‘family’ of instruments always with me.”

He goes on to say: “Because of the fact that I fell in love so easily with so many different instruments, I never

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Shastro is a multi-instrumentalist, born in Italy. The development of his unique musical style evolved over many years during his frequent visits to other countries such as Spain, Turkey, Africa, South America and India. These journeys were inspired by a spiritual search that led him to experience meditation in India and creating music for various meditation techniques. His music can best be described as relaxed world music. He performs on Spanish guitar, Indian Bansuri flute, Clarinet, African Kora harp, Indian Dilruba, Native American flutes and other ethnic instruments all with equal ease and beauty, integrating sometime ancient instruments into a compelling contemporary sound. Shastro specializes in music to drift away on - even his upbeat titles exude this relaxed
soothing effect.

Shastro is the president of Malimba Records that he founded in 1997 to help distribute his music as well as the music of several other musicians and friends.
At present he has created 17 albums for the label's catalog -see below. Only his very first recording is not in the catalog: the music for t