| ||||
| Sangeet Natak Akademi hosts music fest in Hyderabad By Dr. A. Ramayya Mulukutla |   | |||
 | ||||
| Sangeet Natak Akademi, as part of their golden jubilee celebrations presented 'Sangeet Swarn', a five day festival of Carnatic and Hindustani Music, from October29 through November 2 at Ravindra Bharati, Hyderabad. It may be remembered that the President of India, H. E. Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam flagged off the celebrations on January 28, 2003 at the Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi. This is the first of four concerts planned, and to be conducted in some of the major cities across the country, during the eighteen-month celebrations.
The Governor of Andhra Pradesh, Surjit Singh Barnala inaugurated the festival. Jayant Kastaur, Secretary of SNA, described the efforts of Akademi in nurturing various kinds of art forms, conducting symposia and holding exhibitions of various musical instruments and organising concerts here and abroad.
19 artistes were presented and the event started in traditional style with Nadaswaram by V. Satyanarayana. Dr. Balamuralikrishna created a special ragam (Rohini) and sang his composition with his unparalleled rendition. Mala Chandrasekhar was flawless with her flute, performing Bowli, Karnaranjani, Kalyani and a Raagamalika. Tribute to Semmangudi
The highlight of the entire series came on the fourth day, when Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia took the stage with his flute. The auditorium was packed - even the aisles has rasikas standing in silence. He thrilled the audience with his rendition of an early evening Raga, Bhim Palas. Then he asked the audience for their requests and played Mishra Piloo (Hamsadhvani). Dr. Balamuralikrishna did the honors of presenting a bouquet, a memento and a shawl to the maestro after the concert. Later that evening, Kirit Khan (sitar) and Gauher Ali Khan (Shehnai) from Kolkata presented a very lively jugalbandi.
On the final day, there were two sessions. During the morning session, as if to complement Pandit Chaurasia’s Misra Piloo, B. Kannan on veena started off with Vathapi Ganapathi in Hamsadhvani, then played Ragam, Tanam, and Pallavi and ended the program with a Thillana. The evening session was filled with the melodious voices of Vinayak Torvi, who created an appreciation of Hindusthani Music among audiences in Bangalore, and Sumitra Guha of Delhi. Guha, who used to be in Hyderabad is also a Carnatic vocalist. The grand finale came when 1994 Grammy Award winner, Padmashri Vishwamohan Bhatt played with gusto the mohan veena.
Kollegal Subramaniam a fifth generation descendant of Saint Thyagaraja, as well as several other noted artists of the past and present attended the function and presented mementoes to the artists. Akademi Secretary Kastaur told KutcheriBuzz that Hyderabad's Ravindra Bharati is the best. auditorium in the country today but its audio system needed to be upgraded to provide rasikas the best facility in a good hall.
Hyderabad has not experienced such a feast of music in recent times. A packed Ravindra Bharati on all the five days was testimony to the high quality of programming. The Department of Culture of the Andhra Pradesh government also lent a hand in hosting this event. >>KutcheriBuzz welcomes reports of events held in Andhra Pradesh. Mail your information to editor@kutcheribuzz.com>>> |
||||
