Eighty veenas, 200 participants and over 24 hours of incessant music… Chicago was immersed and swathed in the veena universe! The Sri Annamacharya Project of North America (SAPNA) once again raised a toast to the ancient instrument at the Sixth International Veena Festival held at the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago on May 10 and 11.
All the Chicagoland veena schools rendered the festival colourful with contributions to the Raaga Darshanam concerts. The enthusiasm of the participants was palpable all through the day.
‘Vallaki Vilasam’ was conceptualised and arranged by Chicago artist Saraswathi Ranganathan. The performance was a beautiful confluence of music from the Saraswathi veena (Saraswathi), surbahaar/sitar (Indrajit Banerjee), santoor (Kunal Gunjal) and the guitar (Carlo Basile). Ganapathi Ranganathan was on the mridangam and Hindole Majumdar on the tabla. The raga chosen for the event was Bhimplaasi followed by ‘Paayo ji maine’ and Chitti Babu’s composition, ‘Reverie.’
Earlier in the day, it was a family affair as three generations of artists too the stage -- Rajeswari Pariti, who is keeping alive the Andhra Vizianagaram bani, with son Ravi Pariti and grandchildren Nitya Pariti and Divya Pariti.
Young Arthi Nadhan displayed commendable skill while presenting the Thanjavur style.
The invited artist Emani Kalyani Lakshminarayana’s concert was exceptional. An authentic torch-bearer of the Emani bani, the veteran showcased the distinct style of plucking the strings to highlight short notes, Western-music like phrases, plain notes, gamakas through glides, contrasting robust and gentle sound effects, energetic and spontaneous outbursts of improvisation! From “Come September” to “Brocheva” to “Needu Charamule”, it was classic Emani bani!
Among the other performances were Priya Narayanan’s Bharatanatyam, poetry recitation by ‘Pratibha Koumudi’ Sarada Sontya and recitals by Rama Gurupalli, Jayshri Prasad and . 14-year old Satvik Gurupalli.
