Jan. 2: The Dover Lane Music Conference is reviving a tradition discontinued 15 years ago by scheduling the inauguration of the annual festival for the morning instead of evening.

The 65th edition of the music conference, to be held at Nazrul Mancha, will be inaugurated by Jasraj at 11am on January 22. The festival will end on the Republic Day morning with a performance by Amjad Ali Khan.

The Sangeet Samman Award 2017 will go to Sisirkana Dhar Chaudhury.

Apart from Jasraj and Khan, the performers will include Ajoy Chakraborty, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Shivkumar Sharma, and Rajan and Sajan Mishra.

Jasraj will perform after the inauguration, following which there will be a break. The session will resume at 8pm. The sessions on the next three days will start in the evening.

"We have received numerous requests from the audience over the years to revive the morning inauguration. So we have decided to revive it. The practice (of inaugurating the festival in the morning) was discontinued in 2001," said Bappa Sen, general secretary, The Dover Lane Music Conference.

Over the past few years, the festival ended with the performance of Jasraj or Amjad Ali Khan. "It would be dawn by the time either would go up on stage and many in the audience would be too tired to listen to their renditions. That's why we will have Pandit Jasraj perform at 11am," Sen said.

Like on previous occasions, the list of artistes in this year's festival is a mix of fresh and famous faces.

Among the five musicians making their debut at the conference is Hassan Haider Khan on the shehnai, whose performance will precede the inauguration.

"I am excited to have got the opportunity to play at such a prestigious conference. I have assisted my father (Ali Ahmed Khan) during his performance here when I was just nine years old. To play solo at the same place is humbling. I will try to do justice to the tradition of great names like my father's and that of Ustad Bismillah Khan, Ustad Vilayat Khan and my guru, sitarist Arvind Parikh," said Hasan Haider, 30.

Among the other "debutants" this year will be vocalists Apoorva Amit Gokhale, Nirmalya Dey (as part of a duet), Sudha Raghunathan and Anjana Nath, who had won a talent search contest conducted by The Dover Lane Music Conference in 1989.

"We are privileged to be associated with this conference, which is the most revered, awaited and sought after music festivals in Calcutta," said Sanjay Budhia of Patton, one of the patrons of the conference.