Main Artists: Vishvajit Roy Chaudhari (Sarod), Priyadarshini Kulkarni (Vocal), Sanjay Kane (film of paintings)
Support Artists: Bharat Kamat (Tabla), Suyog Kundalkar (Harmonium)
Master of the Ceremony: Sucheta Kane
Concept: Priyadarshini Kulkarni
Organizers: New Age Foundation
Venue and Time: S. M. Joshi Hall, Navi Peth on 17th January, 2009 at 6:45 PM
Namaskar!
This week again I was faced with the problem of having to select one from the flooding of ICM concerts in Pune. Being an avid enthusiast of experimentation, I chose Abhivyakti, even though my interest and knowledge of paintings and art are limited to the extreme miracle of having passed elementary grade drawing examination in C grade!
I reached the venue at about 6:30 PM and managed to get a good 5th row seat (first four rows being reserved for invitees). At about 6:50, the MC took the mike in her hands, announced a few more minutes of delay and apologized for it. But just at that instant the chap adjusting the lights on the ladder got down, moved the ladder away, the artists walked onto the stage, the MC took charge of the mike once again and started the proceedings of the evening - all of this requiring not even a minute! Then there were a few preliminaries - welcoming of artists, felicitations of dignitaries a couple of small speeches etc. This was followed by a brief background about the concert theme and an introduction to raga-paintings, their styles and history. A lot of emphasis was also put on the raga-ragini association by Hanumana. All I could gather from this was that the paintings were more than 350 years old, had been collected from various museums in India, digitized and painstakingly worked on to make them presentable in a film. Video projection screens had been set up on both the sides of the stage on which the film was projected. The idea was to project the pictures corresponding to the ragas being performed in Jaipur style!
The musical part of the concert began with raga Shree on Sarod by Vishvajit Roy Chaudhari. The alaap was brief and very effective in setting the mood of the raga. Even though one expects the r-P, P-r meends in Shree, Vishvajitji played these remarkably. The alaap was followed by a madhyalaya jhaptaal composition in Shree. While the raga performance was very good, it was too brief. Vishvajitji followed Shree a short composition in teentaal in raga Jaitashree.
Next Priyadarshini Kulkarni sang vilambit teentaal bandish - aave rajan aaye in raga Gauri after a brief alaap. While not too elaborate, the raga vistaar was well done. Typical Jaipur style taans were well executed. Priyadarshiniji sang a bandish - tum sughar chatur balama - set to ektal in raga Kedar. This was followed by Basant (madhyalaya teentaal - piya sanga khelo ri and drut teen taal tarana). Somehow I found the presentation of Kedar as well as Basant to be quite ordinary.
After this Vishvajitji played Malakauns. The alaap was well done and quickly captivated the mood of the audience. The alaap was followed by a gat in teentaal. While brief the raga-vistaar was well balanced. I felt that this was the best part of the concert. Vishvajitji briefly played raga Darbari after this. Somehow it was not as captivating as Malakauns.
Priyadarshiniji sang raga Nayaki Kanada next - ratiya mai jaagi re in madhyalaya teentaal.
This was followed by both the main artists playing/singing the famous bhajan Bhavani-Dayani (madhyalaya jhaptaal) and a tarana in teentaal in Bhairavi.
Suyog Kundalkar and Bharat Kamat provided appropriate Harmonium and Tabla sangat respectively.
To be very honest, I did not pay much (any?) attention to the projections showing the paintings. I did not find them distracting either. But I am convinced that a huge amount of effort had been put in making the film of the paintings. I am not in a position to comment any more about this aspect of the concert.
Overall I applaud the spirit of the concert. The effort and thought that went in planning and presenting such a program were quite evident. So was the enthusiasm for experimentation while maintaining the dignity of classical art forms of music and art.
Now some "complaints" (only in the area of music) -
When two artists present a program together, it is important that both of them are of similar caliber as well as having excellent understanding/coordination or sharing "chemistry". Unfortunately I felt that there was a bit of a mismatch in this case. And probably because of this Priyadarshiniji looked and sounded quite nervous. This was most evident when they performed Bhairavi together. I fully appreciate the complexities of performing together. I do think that such a program can be much more successful with more collective practice.
I felt that presenting so many ragas - nine to be precise - most being "big" in such a short time makes the concert somewhat cluttered. I would have enjoyed unhurried renditions of 2-3 ragas far better.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
Warm regards,
Bansuriwala
PS:
I found the Jaitshree gat in teentaal quite interesting. The mukhada was something like this -
| S G G P | m d P - | G r G P | G r S - |
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