The Indian Council for Cultural Relations presented Music Mind, a Rabindrasangeet and piano concert, recently. The programme featured under the Horizon series. The objective of the concert was to bring out the latent influences of Western music on some well-known compositions of Rabindranath Tagore. While some of his songs are known to be direct adaptations of Western compositions, the songs chosen for the programme brought out the subtle, intricate interplay between Indian raga-based melodies and the polyphonic character of Western classical music. The concert featured Prabuddha Raha, an ardent singer, and Soumitra Sengupta, a physicist who is also a pianist par excellence.
For his performance, Raha chose " Je ratey mor duarguli", "Bondhu michhe rag koro na", and " Bujhi elo bujhi elo orey pran" among many other songs. He was tuneful and expressive. Both Raha and Sengupta aptly brought out the structure of the tunes of 15 Tagore songs in an ambience of Western modulations and chord sequences on the piano without deviating from the true spirit of the songs. Thus, we learnt that "Tumi kon kanoner phool", which is based on the Raga Pilu-Baroa, shares a strikingly similar chord structure with a famous Spanish composition; we also discovered that the note combinations in some parts of Tagore's " Gobhiro rajani" are similar to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The rendition of " Doorey kothaye" was soulful.
The programme ended with an operatic rendition of " Purano sei diner katha" by Meeryung Hall, the wife of the US consul-general, Craig Hall. She was the guest artist of the evening, and is a soprano who is very interested in Rabindrasangeet. The evening also featured Matri Shakti, choreographed and conceptualized by the Bharatnatyam dancer, Jhinook Mukherjee Sinha. The music was directed by Shubhen Chatterjee and Debashish Saha.
The Saveri Odissi Dance School presented Aratrika, a concert of Odissi dance at Girish Mancha recently. Under the able guidance of Nandini Ghosal, a talented dancer and a senior student of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, the students of the institution made a commendable effort with their performance.
The first half of the evening began with a conventional invocation, Mangalacharan Ganesh Vandana. It was followed by batu nritya, a group composition performed by the students. The next item was a pallavi based on the Raga Saveri, a brilliant piece of choreography by Kelucharan Mohapatra and unforgettable music by Pandit Bhubaneshwar Mishra. The little dancers were spontaneous and jovial in "Phagunero nabino anande", an Odissi performance based on Tagore songs.
Nandini Ghosal was expressive and elegant in her abhinaya number narrating a Radha-Krishna episode. The second half of the evening presented Devitame Saraswati, a dance-drama depicting the history of the goddess of learning, Saraswati. Written by Minakshi Ghosal and choreographed by Nandini Ghosal, it was an enjoyable presentation.
