Thursday December 09, 2004

The Bangalore Habba

The city is celebrating Bangalore Habba, its annual arts and culture festival this week. The quality of the events is very good, and they're all free. As usual, there is the occasional naysayer protesting "Not enough Kannada!".

Yesterday, I went to the classical music session in the evening. We started off with Vinayak Torvi singing a competently fierce Maru Bihag for about 50 minutes, followed by 2 shorter pieces: a Kafi thumri and a bhajan. This was followed by a performance by the violin trio of Lalgudi Jayaraman and his children GJR Krishnan and Vijayalakshmi. Two of the ragas were Mohanam and Kirwani, and another one sounded quite close to the Hindustani Bihagda. All in all, an evening well-enjoyed by the packed auditorium.

(2004-12-09 19:59:32.0) Permalink

Friday June 11, 2004

some concerts in Bangalore last weekend

Let me try putting something in the Music category, since it's there. I attended the Taranath foundation's yearly music festival last weekend. they seem to have a concert series every year. Last year, they had an all-nighter, the highlight of which was Kalapini Komkali - Kumar Gandharva's daughter - singing Nand, the same piece her father sang. Quite beautiful.

This year, the performers were Ganapati Bhat and Ronu Majumdar (flute) in the morning and Prabhakar Karekar and Rajeev Taranath (sarod) in the evening. I've listened to Ganapati Bhat before and had high expectations when he announced Gujri Todi, one of my favourites - but it was a let-down. Ronu Majumdar had a fabulous pakhawaj accompanist (Durga Prasad) who played thunderously with much style.

Prabhakar Karekar in the evening started off with Raag Patdeep at a fast pace, as usual. Omkar Gulvady's fabulous drumming on tabla makes him my favourite accompanist in 'vilambit' tempos. This was probably the best piece of the whole festival. We had to come away without listening to Rajeev Taranath, but then we've listened to him before. (2004-06-11 03:29:02.0) Permalink