The Heritage Hall of the renowned Ravenshaw University in the millennium city of Cuttack — the former cultural capital of Odisha — reverberated with the memorable sarod recital by Sura Ranjan Mukhopadhyay who was invited this month to the ‘Horizon' concert series being hosted in the State every month by the Odisha Chapter of the ICCR (Indian Council for Cultural Relations). In his first ever performance in the State, the sarod exponent charmed the connoisseurs and connected with his audience instantly as he commenced his captivating concert with raga Bageshri. The meditative aalap was followed by the conventional jod and jhaala as he presented the vilambit (slow paced) and drut (fast paced) aspects of the typical Hindustani style of rendition. It was set to teen taal.
Moving on, he presented raga Hemant and in this rendition he skipped the aalap aspect and kicked off with the madhyalaya (medium paced) to conclude with the drut.
It was set to ek taal. Upon request from his audience, he concluded his concert with a dhun set to raga Bhairavi and Keharwa taal.
His style of rendition reflected a unique combination of the gayaki and the tantrakari. Jaideb Mukherjee on tabla did a splendid job as an accompanying artiste.
Never did he attempt to dominate the artiste in focus — the sarod player — with display of his talent or trick. Later, during his interaction with the audience, it was learnt that born into a family of musicians,
Sura Ranjan was initiated into music by his father who was an exponent of flute of Benaras and Lucknow gharana.
Although his father and first guru trained him, he later developed his own style — as it happens with all exponents.
