Committed to promote young upcoming talents, the India International Centre (IIC) organised Summer Festival 2018 at the C.D. Deshmukh auditorium last week.
The two-day festival commenced with a sonorous sarod recital by Prabhat Kumar, a young sarodiya of Senia Maihar Gharana, trained under the tutelage of Late Guru Sharan Rani for more than two decades. His selection of Puriya-Dhanashri, one of the most timely sandhi-prakash ragas for this hour of the evening and its immaculate rendering with detailed alaap-jod-jhala and a couple of compositions, spoke of his traditional approach and meticulous training.
The melancholy of the melodious raga pervaded all over during the reposeful alaap. The inherent rhythm of the following jod sequence, adorned with impressive gamak, soot, ghaseet and the ‘dir dir ka kaam’ in the climaxing jhaala brought him to the next step of rendering the slow and medium tempo compositions.
Accompanied on tabla by Janab Akhtar Hassan, he played the masitkhani gat in slow Teentala, where the opening uthaan of tabla compensated for the long wait during alaap-jod-jhala. Elaborating the raga further, Prabhat used the varied combinations of Tisra, Khand and Misra Jaati Chhand with Akhtar Hassan following suit on tabla . The drut Teentala composition with its striking dir dir ka Kaam, sounded like a young maiden looking back her beloved stealthily, while pretending to go.
The biggest asset of Prabhat is his total tunefulness, assisted by his sharp ears. He would retune his sarod, if there were a difference of even a single shruti. He properly checked his instrument even after concluding the alaap-jod-jhala, before proceeding to play the compositions. One only wished he would have concluded his recital with a dhun in lighter vein, instead of exhausting the given time in just the main raga.
Kanakashree Bhatt from Indore, the next artiste of the inaugural evening, simply symbolised the title of the festival ‘Koyal ke Swar’, with her melodious voice. A gifted disciple of Vidushi Kalpana Zokarkar, Kanakshree completed her M. Phil in music from Indore University. Her seasoned voice with open akaar, attracted attention of the discerning audience from her very first ‘sur-lagaav’, when she opened her concert with raga Bihag.
Kanakashree Bhatt
Raga in focus
The bada khayal, “Kaise sukh sove…” set to vilambit Ektaal, saw Kanakashree elaborating the raga note by note, with meticulous adherence to the traditional bandish. The clear awareness of the design of the raga made her deal it systematically with ample ease, right from the alaap badhat to boltaan, sargam and akaar taans with an aesthetic sensibility. The chhota khayal, “Lagan tose lagi…”, set to medium tempo Teen-tala was rendered with relish. Kanakshree concluded her recital with a kajri sung with a dadra style semi-classical treatment. She was ably accompanied by Chaitanya Garg on harmonium and Saptak Sharma on Tabla.
The second evening opened with a sitar recital by Sandip Banerjee from Kolkata. Initiated into sitar by Manoranjan Banerjee, Sandip was further trained under Pt. Manilal Nag of Bishnupur Gharana for two decades and then under Pt. Ajay Sinha Roy of Maihar Gharana. Presently being groomed under Pt. Saumitra Lahiri, his illustrious introduction and also of the tabla accompanist Kaushik Dutta, who was a disciple of Gurus like Pt. Shankar Ghosh and Shri Jnan Prakash Ghosh, hightened the expectations.
Sandip opened with raga Shuddha Vasant. The first meend from dhaivat to shadja was encouraging for the expectant listeners, but all of his alaap-jod-jhala finishing within hardly ten minutes, sounded disappointing. He played three compositions subsequently set to slow, medium and fast tempos of Teentala, concluding with a confused jhala. The bandishes of the three compositions were remarkable, but the elaboration of the raga and the lovely compositions, left much to be desired. Sandip concluded his Sitar recital with a hurried dhun in Manjh Khamaj. Kaushik Dutt tried his level best to uplift the performance to no avail.
Saptak Chatterjee the concluding artiste reached the festival to its climax with a brilliant vocal recital. The gifted grandson of Pt. Arun Chatterjee and son of Pt. Sarathi Chatterjee, Saptak started training under their tutelage from a very tender age. A graduate from Delhi University, Saptak finished his post graduation in audio engineering and music production. He is a B High grade artist of the All India Radio. The versatile young musician has performed concerts from Hindustani classical to contemporary, film and World music. Associated with the Delhi based world fusion band ‘Sab Culture’, he has also performed with them in major festivals.
Accompanied on harmonium by Shyam Kumar Bharati and on tabla by Saptak Sharma, Saptak Chatterjee opened his vocal recital with raga Bihag, perhaps unaware that this raga was already rendered in this festival. Opening with an introductory alaap, he presented two khayal compositions of Pt. Arun Chatterjee in vilambit Ektala and Teentala respectively, concluding with a tarana in drut Ektala.
The grammatically correct rendering of the raga and proper delineation of the compositions vouched for his training while the power and force of the sargam and akaar taans revealed his rigorous riyaaz. Saptak concluded with a Bhairavi Bhajan with the Bhajneek theka on tabla and the enhancing tender touches of harmonium.
