Annual celebration of music and dance

The festival started with a Hindustani vocal music recital by Pandit Venkatesh Kumar from Dharwad. Venkatesh began his recital with ‘Ae Ri Aali Piya Bin’ in Rag Yaman.

The alaap, taans and layakari proved his mastery and left the audience spellbound. Rajrupa Chowdhury from Bangladesh is one of the few woman Sarod players performing classical music around the globe and opened her concert with ‘Raga Jhinjoti’.

She further played ‘Raga Bibhavati’ and concluded with her own composition in ‘Raga Anil Madhyam’. Parimal Chakraborty provided able support on tabla.

The second day saw a brilliant performance of Yakshagana dance by a little Master Kartik Shukla.This was followed by a Kathak recital by Shinjini Kulkarni, grand daughter of Pandit Birju Maharaj with good tabla accompaniment from Anubrata Chatterjee, son of tabla legend Anindo Chatterjee.

The third evening saw a beautiful dance ballet by the Shama Bhate Kathak group from Pune, which danced against the backdrop of Meera Bhajans composed by Hridaynath Mangeshkar and sung by ‘Melody Queen’ Lata Mangeshkar.

Then came a powerful rendition of a Ragamala in 18 ragas by Dr Bharat Balwalli followed by an enchanting Marathi Natyageet by Neelakshi Pendharkar.

Bharat went on to sing a composition popularised by Bal Gandharv and Master Dinanath Mangeshkar.The concluding program by Purbayan Chatterjee, Master Shashank, Satyajit Talwalkar, Mahalaxmi Iyer and other young musicians started on a fusion music style, went into a rock music mode and finally ended on a soft Bollywood music number.

The festival supports children with Autism at Autism Ashram, Shamirpet, in association with Simply Give Foundation.

By:Jaywant Naidu

Also Read: