Sangeet Piyasi’s 34th annual event was held at Uttam Mancha and Daga Nikunj this year and listeners got a chance to enjoy recitals by senior artists from different districts of West Bengal. Amar Seth from Malda presented a tabla lahara in teentaal and Alpana Roy from Nadia chose Raga Yog and a thumri in Raga Mishra Kaushikdhwani. Arabinda Mandal from Murshidabad played Raga Kaunsi Kanada on the sitar. Ujjwal Bharati, Ashok Mukherjee and Soumen Sarkar put up an enjoyable percussion presentation. Sandeep Chatterjee on the santoor, Vivek Sonar on the flute, and Gopal Das played Raga Kirwani along with Somnath Roy on the ghatam. Gobindo Bose highlighted the core attributes of teentaal with his style and experience.
Arati Ankalikar-Tikekar’s vocal recital in Raga Nand with Kumar Bose on the tabla (picture, left) enchanted the audience. Anindo Chattopadhyay’s solo tabla lahara was resonant with Rupashree Bhattacharya on the harmonium and Roshan Ali on the sarangi. The last session was truly unique with performances by artists with special abilities. Sanjay Ghosh was striking on the violin; he played Raga Jhinjhoti followed by a dhun in Raga Mishra Piloo. The last day of the festival had sparkling performances by the young talents, Kamalaksha Mukherjee, Mithun Chakaraborty, Debajyoti Bose, Apurba Mukherjee, Sourabh Goho and Sujit Saha, who made the festival a success.
The magic of winter in the city is incomplete without the ITC Sangeet Research Academy’s music festival. Pranjal Ghatak enchanted the audience by playing Raga Jhinjhoti with Ashok Mukherjee on the tabla. The virtuosity of the senior artist, Parveen Sultana (picture, right), was admirable in Raga Puriya Dhanashree. She also sang a Kabir bhajan and her signature bhairavi sadra, “Bhabani Dayani”, with Jyoti Goho accompanying her beautifully on the harmonium. Brajeshwar Mukherjee entertained listeners with his expert rendition of all the octaves and the vocal intricacies of Raga Malkauns with Ashish Pal on the tabla and Gourab Chatterjee on the harmonium.
Parveen Sultana
A night-long session commenced with Shubhra Guha’s rendition of Raga Lalita Gauri followed by a thumri in Raga Mishra Piloo. Sanjay Mukherjee and Rupashree Bhattacharya accompanied her on the tabla and the harmonium, respectively. The sitarist, Kalayan Majumdar, played Raga Shyam Kalyan and the sisters, Ranjani and Gayathri, added Carnatic flavour through their vocal rendition in Raga Pantuvarali. The vocalist, Ajoy Chakrabarty, presented Raga Gorakh Kalyan in his usual style. The night’s most unique and enjoyable performance was the mridangam sankirtan by Suresh Talwalkar and his young troupe consisting of Krishna Salunke, Prathamesh Taralkar, Parth Bhumkar, Nagesh Adgaonkar (vocal), Pushkar Bhagat and Abhishek Shinkar (harmonium). They chose the ragas, Behag and Chadrakauns, followed by different stuti parans.
The vocalist, Deborshee Bhattacharya, sang Raga Kausi Kanada. This was followed by an interesting ensemble in Raga Bageshree by the flautist, S. Akash, the violinist, Yagnesh Raikar, the sitarist, Mehtab Ali Niyazi, with mridangam and tabla accompaniment from Sai Giridhar and Ishan Ghosh, respectively. Uday Bhawalkar presented a dhrupad in Raga Lalit with Pratap Awadh on the pakhawaj. Ashwini Bhide Deshpande rendered the ragas, Ramkali
and Gurjari Todi, in her mellifluous voice.
In the concluding session, Nayan Ghosh
and Ishan Ghosh played a tabla lahara based on teentaal. Meher Parlikar and Kasturi Joshi’s sweet vocal rendition was followed by Omkar Dadarkar. His melodious voice flourished in the ragas, Nayaki Kanada and Abhogi, with able accompaniment from
Moti Bhagat and Sarwar Hussain on the tabla and the sarangi, respectively.
