A fine offering of song and dance
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The recent Arpan festival provided a rich tapestry of warp and woof of culture.
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IN TUNE Some of the musicians who took part in Arpan festival.
The much-awaited annual music and dance extravaganza Arpan opened with tuneful shehnai recital by Delhi's young Lokesh Anand and his party in the Raga Shyam Kalyan. Lokesh is a disciple of Delhi's elder shehnai player Pandit Anant Lal. Durgesh Bhowmick provided the tabla accompaniment.
Lokesh impressed with the excellent tonal flavour of his instrument. The opening alap followed with two compositions in the slow nine beat `matta-tal'. He concluded with a melodious `madhya tintal' piece laced with quite a few colourful variations. One only wished that the shades of the allied raga Kamod had been totally avoided.
The next instrumental recital was by another young artist of Delhi, the violinist Asghar Hussain. He is the disciple of the late Ustad Zahoor Ahmed Khan and his son Iqbal Ahmed Khan. Akhtar Hussain provided the tabla accompaniment.
Intricate and rich
Asghar impressed with his excellent bowing technique and precise handling of the notes on the fiberboard with utmost tunefulness. His rendering of `alap-jod' in the charming melody of Raga Bageshweri contained many a subtle as well as bold sequences particularly the rich-toned `gamakas'. The mid-tempo 11-beat time cycle of Chautal ki savari, which is of an intricate rhythmic pattern was handled with ease and lively variations. The concluding `tintal' piece in the same raga rendered was also with much aplomb.
Bharatanatyam dance
The last performance of the opening evening was a Bharatanatyam dance recital by young and petite Priya Venkatraman who was initially trained by Malathi Gupta and later on by Saroja Vaidyanathan, Shobhana Swami and G. Narendra and for a short period by Leela Samson. She is currently studying under the Vazhuvur exponent Kanaka Srinivasan who conducted Priya's recital of the evening. Priya opened with Sri Ganesa Charanam Gajanana composed by Papanasan Sivan. It is composed in raga Tilang and set to the eight beat `aditalam'. The next rendering was an ode to Goddess Saraswati.
Priya was at her very best with Gangadeeswaram in praise of Lord Shiva which is a traditional piece describing the Lord Shiva's attributes and his `ardhanareshwara' form. It was a composition of Dayanand Saraswathi in raga Sindhu Bhairavi and set to `aditalam'.
Priya further delighted with her gracefully rendered Ashtapadi from poet Jayadeva's Geet Govinda (Sakhi he kesi madana mudaram) set to raga Khamaj. It describes the love play between Radha and Krishna.
Priya concluded with a lively `tillana' in raga Madhuwanti composed by the eminent violinist Lalgudi Jayaram. This young, highly gifted and very well trained dancer enthralled the audience with her graceful and precise body movements and excellent footwork . Kanaka Srinivasan did the Nattuvangam while Sudha Raghuraman provided the melodic vocal accompaniment. Others who provided excellent accompaniment were G. Raghuraman on the flute and Bejanki Krishna on the mridangam.
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