The beautiful coastline of the city woke up to the tunes of guitar maestro Baiju Dharmajan and vocalist Vijay Hegde’s scintillating musical fusion on the first day of the ‘Sounds on Sand’ festival on Saturday. The two-day music festival is a first-of-its-kind initiative of AP Tourism being organised in association with the E-Factor Adventure Tourism.
The hour-long performance held the audience captive as the musicians set off on a melodic journey traversing seamlessly on a fusion format of western and classical music. Known as the ‘God of Strings’ by fans, Baiju Dharmajan has a major influence of the Carnatic musical style in his guitar riffs and solos. Since 2010, Baiju has been working on collaborations and solo projects. He released his debut solo album titled ‘The Crossover’ in 2012 under the record label Cochym. Baiju was thrice voted as the best guitarist at the Jack Daniel’s Rock Awards, the latest being in 2013-14. During his show here, he interacted with the local bands and inspired them. “This is my first performance in Visakhapatnam and I am already in love with the city and its beauty. I loved playing for the music-loving audience that gathered here,” he told The Hindu .
‘Great initiative’
Vocalist Vijay Hegde, who performed for the first time with guitar maestro Baiju, said the music festival was a great initiative wherein musicians could have a direct connect with audience. “The fantastic location just added to the energy. We loved the city for its natural beauty; it feels like an artiste’s creation. The purpose of a fusion of western and classical music is to popularise classical music in a way that has a far wider reach. And this is an ideal platform for it,” he said.
Local bands Kairoz and Echo got a chance to perform on the day one of the festival. With elaborate sets and a spectacular sound arrangement, the music festival has been drawing a good response and creating quite a buzz on the social networking sites. On Sunday, singer Ameya Dabli will be performing in the morning. The evening programme will see Indian Idol winner Revanth performing along with singers Mohammed Irfan and Asees Kaur. Later in the evening, singer Usha Uthup and music composer Leslie Lewis performed.
