The 76th Annual Music Festival of Rasika Ranjana Sabha was held at Thyagaraja Hall and featured young Carnatic artists over four days. The festival was inaugurated with a vocal recital by Bharat Sundar with Sayee Rakshith on the violin, Delhi Sairam on the mridangam, and K.V. Gopalakrishnan on the kanjira. Sundar rendered a kriti by Muthuswami Dikshitar and improvised the main piece in Raga Todi with kalpanaswaram set to aditaal. The presentation was followed by an enjoyable taani avartanam by the percussionists. He concluded with a thillana of his own in Varali Ragam.
The flourish of Kalyanapuram S. Aravind’s vocal performance was enhanced by L. Ramakrishnan on the violin, N.C. Bharadwaj on the mridangam and Gopalakrishnan on the kanjira (picture, left). His rendition was based on Raga Saveri. Bharadwaj lifted the mood of the concert with able support from Gopalakrishnan. N.J. Nandini from Thiruvananthapuram sang “Satatam tavaka pada sevanam” in Raga Karaharapriya; it was set to aditalam and was well-appreciated by the audience. The concluding vocal recital was by Kruthi Bhat, a talented musician from Chennai. She presented a kriti by Thyagraja in Raga Vachaspati — also set to aditalam — and beautifully rendered the kalpanaswarams. But the highlight of her performance was in Raga Shankarabharanam — a kriti by Muthuswami Dikshitar in misra chhapu taal. The artist was supported by Alancode V.S. Gokul on the violin, Praveen Sparsh on the
mridangam, and G. Guruprasanna on the kanjira.
Sangeet Samarpan, a two-day music festival at ICCR, was a tribute to the sarod maestro, Dhyanesh Khan. The programme started with a guru vandana by Ritwick Chakraborty of the Aashish Khan School of World Music. This was followed by an entertaining musical ensemble by the students that blended voice, instruments and percussion and was supervised by Dwiptanil Bhattacharjee. The vocalist, Sohini Roy Chowdhury, commenced her rendition in Raga Shyam Kalyan, singing a vilambit and a madhyalay kheyal, followed by a tarana. She concluded with a thumri. Asif Khan on the tabla and Sayan Chatterjee on the harmonium provided able support. The senior tabla exponent, Samar Saha, demonstrated the depth of his craft and the melodiousness of his movements while performing the different attributes of teentaal. Hiranmay Mitra accompanied him on the harmonium. Amitava Majumdar ended the first evening with his sarod recital in Raga Abhogi. He played alaap, jor, and jhala and continued with gatkari, along with Arup Chattopadhyay on the tabla.
The second session began with an ensemble recital by the students of AKSWM, followed by an electrifying tabla solo by Ojas Adhiya. His performance was based on rupak taal and displayed his skill in the kaydas, chakradhars, bols and tihais with Mitra on the harmonium. The Odissi performance by Shib Narayan Banerjee and his troupe was a visual treat for the audience. Banerjee performed a composition based on Durga and his disciple, Koyeli Chatterjee, presented a part of Geet Govindam. Banerjee was expressive and dominant in his performance while being poised in his body language. The programme concluded with a sarod recital by Shiraz Ali Khan (picture, right). He played alaap and jor as well as gat in Raga Chandranandan with Ojas Adhiya and concluded the event with a rendition in Raga Mishra Kafi.