‘Raga Pravesam,’ the two-day concert and workshop, an initiative of Kavya Kreative, founded by Vijay Kumar Magapu, was held at P.C. Saxena Auditorium, IIT. The event aimed at spreading music appreciation and awareness among listeners.
Padmavathi Thyagaraju’s power-point presentation was on the unique features of melakarta system and the katapayadi sutra. ‘What it means to be a music-lover’ was illustrated with photographs and anecdotes of some veteran musicians. She demonstrated geetams, varnams, kritis, alapana, niraval, etc in Mohanam, Bhairavi and Kalyani ragas. “My intention in basing my concert on just two or three ragams was to thoroughly familiarise the audience with them,” said Padmavathi.
Brief alapana in Mohanam was followed by Bhairavi as the main with ‘Enati Nomu Phalamo’ embellished with detailed niraval and kalpanaswaram in the charanam. The experience and erudition of the artiste came through in the performance.
Padmavathi presented various compositions in the evening session, such as ‘Naan oru vilaiyattu bommaiya,’ ‘Muddugare Yasoda’ and Balamurali Krishna’s Kadanakutuhalam tillana, concluding on a joyous note.
Accompanying artistes for the Carnatic concerts were Sateesh Seshadri (violin). Aditya Rajagopalan and Suresh Sethuraman accompanied on the mridangam for two sessions.
Ghazals and bandish
Shreyas Patkar of Kashsish band accompanied by Sumit Chache on guitar, Bhavesh Joshi on cajon box and Gaurav Murkar on tabla, gave a performance of ghazals.
Hindustani classical vocal rendition of Pt. Suresh Bapat featured raag Nata Bhairav with his two unique compositions. Vilambit Khayal was set to taal Tilwada followed by drut Ektaal bandish ‘Piyarwa ko Samajaye.’
In raag Bairagi, he demonstrated madhya laya Jhaptaal bandish composed by the legendary Pt. C.R. Vyas. ‘Re mana gavo,’ the dhrut bandish was Bapat’s own composition in Ektaal. Madhya laya tarana in Raag Bilaval composed by Pt. Shankar Abhyankar was followed by Punjabi drut learnt from his guru Dr. Ashok D. Ranade.
The concert concluded with ‘Radhe tore nainanava salone,’ thumri in Bhairavi in taal Deepchandi.
Bapat was accompanied by senior artistes, Rigved Deshpande on the tabla and Neela Sohoni on the harmonium. Prathamesh Laghate and Shrirang Bhave efficiently assisted as tanpura accompanists and vocal support. The brief jugalbandi of Padmavathi Thyagaraju and Suresh Bapat gave a taste of the unifying force of music.
Three artistes — Rajalakshmi Balasubramaniam, G. Balasubramaniam and Pt. Satish Vyas were felicitated on the occasion. Artistes Kailas Anyal and his students surprised everyone by sketching pencil portraits of the honoured guests.
