Come winter and Kolkata gears up to welcome the season of soirees, many of which are organised by venerated, erudite musicians who encourage the deserving torchbearers of different gharanas with well-placed hope and pride. Two such prestigious soirees, essentially attended by musicians across generations as both participants and listeners, exposed young, talented sitar players Kalyanjit Das (1992-born) and Snehesh Nag (1997-born).
Both hail from musical families; pursued their academics with pure science as major subject, and are at present studying B. Tech. (Electronics). Both are thinking musicians, raring to make it big; won the top ranks in All India Radio competitions (2012 and 2014 respectively). They were initiated by their fathers whose music follows the styles of maestros who remained under the spell of Ustad Amir Khan’s gayaki , steeped in spiritually inspired intellectualism. Despite all the similarities, both are delightfully different.
Pandit Kushal Das, one of the top sitar exponents of his generation, who blends the styles of Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, Lakshman Bhattacharya and several others, is Kalyanjit’s father-guru. “More than playing the sitar physically, Kalyanjit has heard me play for hours. As a little baby he would lie down in my lap happily and quietly while I did my riyaz,” said Das with the hint of an indulgent smile. Probably, that is why they enjoy duets. Usually such duets are subjected to comparison, especially if there is a question of unequal experience between the participants but, as proved earlier at Ramakrishna Mission (2010), the delightful anticipation and sync between the father-son-cum-guru-shishya-duo remained the hallmark of their performance organized by Abhijit Banerjee’s Dhwani Academy. Their duet merrily explored the beauty of raga Shuddh Basant. As a soloist Kalyanjit has performed in India and abroad extensively since 2006. To give his music the ‘chaumukha’ (four-dimensional) effect, he is training with Pandit Sanjoy Banerjee, an eminent sitarist-musicologist. His mother Sujata Das initiated him into vocalism. He now receives guidance from none other than Ustad Rashid Khan. To master the rhythm-play he is learning under venerated tabla maestros Pandit Shankar Ghosh, Subhankar Banerjee and Biplab Bhattacharya. Recently, he won the coveted Jnana Pravaha scholarship, meant for brilliant young professional musicians.
Teenaged Snehesh has been keenly followed by aficionados for several years as he has proved his talent with equal interests in academics as well as Western classical music. As in the ITC SRA Sangeet Sammelan earlier, this sitar virtuoso presented one of the most appealing versions of raga Jhinjhoti as the opening artiste of Ballygunge Maitreyee Sangeet Sammelan organised by Padmabhushan Buddhadev Dasgupta.
Snehesh, blended a lot of emotion, surprise elements and aesthetic touches replete with the dramatic ups and downs of several euphoric crescendos and lingering peace punctuated by well measured silences; all streaming out of a thinking mind, far too matured for his age.
Snehesh started learning music early from Pranab Naha and his father, sitar virtuoso Sugato Nag, who belongs to the Sarod Gharana of Senia Shahjahanpore and follows the style of Ustad Shahid Parvez. Snehesh is also learning the intricacies of rhythm from tabla maestro Tanmoy Bose and finer nuances of vocalism from Sandeep Nag. He sailed through the stringent tests of the ITC Sangeet Research Academy and has been a scholar under the able wings of Guru Buddhadev Das Gupta since 2010.
He continues to receive advanced lessons from his mentors despite the pressure of studies aimed at a parallel engineering career like his father and Pandit Dasgupta. He bagged the Acharya Allauddin Khan Memorial Award 2014. A regular AIR artiste, he won accolades from learned audiences wherever he played and continues to perform in India and abroad.
