The Sangeet Natak Akademi presented a Festival of Performing Arts featuring recipients of the Akademi Fellowship and the Akademi Awards at various venues in the Meghdoot complex and the Vivekananda Sabhagar recently. Music lovers enjoyed an interactive session on Dilli Gharana by Krishna Bisht and another session on Sugam Sangeet by Bhupinder Singh, apart from the classical music segment with a sitar recital by Pandit Kartick Kumar, Hindustani vocal by Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan and sarod recital by Pandit Brij Narayan.
The Vivekananda Hall of Kathak Kendra was brimming with enthusiastic music lovers who had come to listen to the Hindustani classical concerts of the SNA awardees that opened with star recital by Pandit Kartick Kumar, the senior most disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar. Since Kartick Kumar has also learnt Sur Bahar once, under Annapurna Devi, the eminent Guru of Maihar Gharana; people expected him to play something sumptuous, at least some time honoured raga, but he started with Tilak Shyam, a creation of his Guru combining ragas Tilak Kamod and Shyam Kalyan, as an offering to him and then a raga named Kala-Ranjani, conceived by himself on the same line, combining ragas Kalawati and Shiva-Ranjani.
The normal rule for these kind of combination or Jod-Ragas is, either the Purvang-Uttarang where you use one raga in the first half of the octave and the other raga in the second half; or one raga in the ascending order, the Aroh, and the other in the descending Avroh. Here the opening statement of Panditji showed the complete contour of Kalawati and the second one dealt fully with Shiva-Ranjani. When this critic wanted to understand what was the logic or rule to delineate this raga, there was no satisfactory answer and Panditji said he would need two, three hours to explain this. Akram Khan gave him commendable tabla support.
Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan, the senior vocalist and Guru of Kirana Gharana, presently teaching at the Kolkata-based ITC-Sangeet Research Academy, opened his performance with raga Lakshmi Kalyan. Khan Saheb emphasised that this was an old raga of Kirana Gharana sung by Ustad Abdul Karim Khan and the other stalwarts of this Gharana.
The introductory Alap was followed with the Bada Khayal ¨äaj anand bhayo...¨ set to slow Ek-tala and the Chhota Khayan in Teen-Tala with the Khand-Meru treatment of his famed Gharana followed by a variety of Akar and Sargam Taans. He had the best of accompanying artistes in Ram Kumar on tabla and Paromita Mukherjee on harmonium, but the raga sounded simply Puriya Kalyan with a Komal Rishabh.
Pandit Brij Narayan chose the sonorous Marwa, a serious and time-tested raga of the evening, apt for a full fledged concert to prove his merit as the deserving artiste of this coveted award and he did full justice to it. Opening with a reposeful and leisurely aalap followed with a pulsating jod and a crystal clear jhala, he followed with a slow and a medium tempo composition in Teentala. Fidelity to pitch perfect execution of the raga, underlining its focal points and excellent technique that at once reminded the discerning audience of both Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Pandit Ram Narayan, who have groomed Pandit Brij Narayan. The choice of his compositions also showed his penchant towards the rhythmic aspect which he enjoyed equally. Sudhir Pande was the ideal choice for his tabla accompanist who demonstrated full restraint during the slow composition and enjoyed the rhythmic play during the fast one. Brij Narayan concluded his melodious concert with a Rupak Tala composition in raga Pilu that had an intriguing gait. Sudhir Pande adjusted the seven beats of Rupak to eight, for his concluding Keherwa Laggi that regaled the audience.
