Bowing with growing brilliance
JITENDRA PRATAP
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Sarangi exponent Murad Ali impressed with his youthful flair.
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RICH WITH RESONANCE: Murad Ali performing at the HCL concert in New Delhi
Recently, the HCL series of concerts at the India Habitat Centre featured a brilliant performance by the duo of Murad Ali and Akram Khan, on sarangi and tabla respectively. The recital was noteworthy for their well-matured artistic insights and their superb command over their respective musical instruments.
Though the two artists are quite young, they revealed a high level of musicianship and artistic depth in their performance, which was totally devoid of showmanship. Murad Ali commenced his recital with an in-depth handling of the serene raga Puriya, a testing ground even for musicians of greater repute. The opening piece in slow Ek tala, based on the well-known khayal composition "Piya Gunawant", popular with the Kirana musicians, was given a befitting handling with detailed alap-badhat. It was followed by forceful sapaat and gamakas released with refreshingly executed melodic sequences. The madhya Teen tala piece that followed was rather reminiscent of the late Aftaab-e-Mousiqui Ustad Faiyaz Khan's well-known song "Mai Kar Aayee Piya Sang Rang Ralliyaan," and the faster Teen tala piece played like a tarana.
Equally commendable was the choice of the romantic melody of raga Bihag for the next rendering. The charmingly rendered Madhya Teen tala composition, based on the song "Dekho Sakhi" was delineated with delightfullyreleased melodic sequences that sustained the raga's basic character.
Lively piece
Murad Ali rounded off this part of the recital with a short but lively piece in fast Teen tala. One was much impressed by his meticulous tuning of the sarangi - given its scores of metal and gut strings - with utmost perfection thereby releasing a rich and highly resonant tonal flavour.
The choice of a thumri-based piece in raga Mishra Khamaj, set to a 16 beat `sitarkhani-theka', came in as an appropriate finale to his performance, though the same cannot be said of the short diversions into the ragas Shyam Kalyan, Kafi, and Pilu as ragamala sequences.
Ace percussionist Akram Khan deserves praise for accompanying Murad Ali with understanding and rich-toned variations from his finely tuned drums. Besides numerous rounds of chakkardaar parans and tihais, his rendering of the delightful laggi played towards the end of the recital drew hearty applause from the entire audience.
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Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
