To mark the 10th anniversary of Natya Tarangini's Parampara series of festivals of music and dance, Raja-Radha and Kausalya Reddy presented Sampratikam, a festival based on the theme of contemporary trends in classical music and dance at the Kamani auditorium this past week. Both Carnatic and Hindustani classical music have moved forward from the conventional solo performances to new experimentations in recent years. The three-day Sampratikam showcased a judicious representation of creative works by renowned artistes in both classical music and dance. This review focuses on the music segment.
On the first day, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Ronu Majumdar took the stage for a jugalbandi on the Mohan veena and flute. Ronu provided some delicate touches on his sonorous flute during the detailed alap-jod in raga Charukeshi complementing the Mohan veena, while waiting for his turn before both of them played together a couple of slow and medium tempo compositions in this raga. There was an overdose of Darbari ang in the assertive virtuosity of Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt at times, but Ronu would melodiously bring him back on track. Ram Kumar Mishra on tabla was brilliant as usual.
The versatile violin duo Ganesh and Kumaresh gave a scintillating performance of Carnatic music the next evening. Opening their concert with their own composition, “Raga-Pravaaham”, depicting the majesty of our country in raga Gambhir Nattai, the violin wizards went on to play a composition of Muttuswami Dikshitar in raga Rasikapriya and another one by Tyagaraja in raga Kharaharapriya set to Adi tala, before they concluded with a mesmerising Sindhu Bhairavi composition by Purandaradasa. Their imaginative swaraprastaras and the electrifying taan patterns spoke of both, their sensitive manodharma and the unbelievable technical virtuosity. Jayachandra Rao's mridangam accompaniment and his tani avartanams were superb.
The festival concluded with the mesmerising Hindustani and Carnatic jugalbandi on sitar and veena by Gaurav Majumdar and Jayanthi Kumaresh. They chose Raga Bihag, common to both the music systems, for their duet, and explored the beauty of the raga in their own respective styles. It was amazing to note that the notes were the same but the progression was totally different from the very beginning when they opened with alap-jod on the sitar and ragam-taanam on the veena. The sitar had to be confined to the strict boundaries of the raga, whereas the veena could use swaras like Komal Nishad also to beautify its statements.
The lovely Bihag composition that followed in the medium tempo was simultaneously joined by Akram Khan playing Teen tala on the tabla and Jaychandra Rao playing Adi tala on the mridangam. There was an interesting session of sawaal-jawaab between the sitar and the veena after the emotive elaboration of the raga, and the gopuchh patterns in the faster passages inspired the percussionists also for a similar exciting tete-tete during the tani avartanam. The melodious rendering of raga Pilu/Kapi and its lilting composition that concluded their duet performance, as well as the festival, got Gaurav-Jayanthi and their accompanying artistes a standing ovation.
