The 14th edition of The Hindu November Fest launched on Wednesday at the Taj Coromandel hotel in Chennai with a concert by Chandana Bala Kalyan.
This year, the festival will take place in three cities – Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
Welcoming the audience, Mukund Padmanabhan, Editor, The Hindu , said that from its birth in 2005, the festival has attempted to introduce new forms of music to people.
“Over the last 14 years, we have privileged the unusual over the familiar, experimentation over repetition and novelty over iron-cast genre,” he said.
In her concert, Chandana Bala Kalyan melded genres such as Carnatic, Sufi, Qawwali and jazz with an ease that reflected her musical versatility. She was accompanied by Naveneet Sundar on the keys and M.T. Aditya Srinivasan on the tabla.
In Chennai, the November Fest will kick off with a concert featuring sitar exponent Ustad Shujaat Khan on Thursday. Three acts will also travel to Bengaluru and Hyderabad. They are a collaborative performance by Bombay Jayashri Ramnath and Abhishek Raghuram, an evening featuring Chennai-based Staccato and IndoSoul, and music from Bollywood by Rekha Bhardwaj from Mumbai.
The Hindu November Fest is powered by HDFC Bank. Associate sponsors are Apollo Hospitals, Nippon Paint, Joyalukkas and Girias, while knowledge partner is International Village School. Radio partner is Fever FM. The concert sponsor for Double Edge is Indian Terrain.
