Kala Ramnath (second from right) performs at the Rajarani Music Festival in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 21: The Rajarani Music Festival found few takers because of performances by the usual artistes and poor publicity.

Organised by the Odisha Tourism, the festival concluded last evening. It was a redundant show of vocalists and musicians who perform many times throughout the year in Bhubaneswar.

The concluding evening saw Odissi vocal recitals by Nimakanta Routray and Sukanta Kundu, who first rendered Kadamba bane bansi bajila re penned by Gopal Krushna. They also presented a piece from Geeta Govinda —Mamiha chalita bilokya set to raag Kalabati, which was composed by Ramhari Das.

The accompanists were mardala exponent Dhaneswar Swain, Ajay Kumar Dash on the harmonium, manjira by Budhanath Swain and Anuja Tarini Mishra on surmandal.

The second programme of the evening was a violin recital by Kala Ramnath, who presented raag Suddha Kalyan. She presented her unique style of violin recital — the singing violin — where the tunes resemble a vocalist’s rendition.

On the inaugural day, senior vocalist Sangita Gosain presented the three aspects of Odissi music — raganga, bhabanga and natyanga — in the form of a combination of many Odia traditional poems. Though she has definitely been one of the most loved singers of Odissi compositions over the years, the city often witnesses her performance at various shows. The first day also saw a recital by tabla player Tanmoy Bose.

The second evening again saw veteran artistes, vocalist Mitali Chinara and flautist Ronu Majumdar who perform quite often in the city. Chinara sang Sajani go, Shyama bandhu ku and Sajani sarigali lajare. Her concluding item was the celebrated romantic poem from Geeta Govinda, Dhira samire yamuna tire on the music was composed by Raghunath Panigrahi. Majumdar presented traditional ragas and was accompanied by Sudhir Pandey on the tabla and Jabahar Mishra on the flute.

Because of the lack of publicity, footfall was thin. Also, unlike last year, which included a performance by Kavita Krishnamurthy, most artistes were regular performers for the city audience. “There are many more exponents in the field of classical music whom we would love to see performing at such prominent festivals. Also, it is time the seniors groomed young talents in Odissi music at the Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya and Utkal University of Culture or their performances would become redundant,” said Bibhubrata, a young music lover.