Mangaluru: Dr. Fr Charles Vas SVD (77), a well-known priest, passed away on Tuesday November 30. He was the director of Sangeet Abhinay Academy, a religious institution of song and dance in Mumbai.
Fr. Charles Vas was well-known for his unique style of expressing God’s presence through music and dance.
Charles Vas was born on February 12, 1944 to Late Jacob and Late Seraphine Vas in Omzoor parish, Mangalore diocese. He has one brother who is a High Court lawyer in Mumbai and three sisters and Fr Charles was fourth child. Two of his sisters are nuns in the Catholic Church. During his childhood, he was really interested in music and he sang in the church choir and acquired a passion for music while playing side drums for the village music band.
He joined the Society of the Divine Word after generously responding to the divine call to religious and priestly life (SVD). During his philosophical studies at the seminary, he pursued a systematic study of guitar and piano while completing his priestly studies. He began formal study under renowned maestro Ramakrishna Joshi, a disciple of Pandit Vishnu Digamber, a notable exponent of Hindustani music, shortly after finishing his philosophy studies.
After being ordained as a priest in 1976, Charles Vas continued his studies and presented his PhD thesis, “East Meets West,” to the Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Miraj, which awarded him a doctorate in music in 1983.
