The hills are alive
MANJARI SINHA
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The SaMaPa Sangeet Sammelan in New Delhi yielded mixed results.
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IN SESSION Abhay Rustam Sopori.
The two-day SaMaPa Sangeet Sammelan 2006, presented at Kamani auditorium this past week
by Sopori Academy of Music and Performing Arts (SaMaPa), seemed more of a social function of Kashmir held in Delhi involving dignitaries from the Chief Minister to the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir and a number of MPs from the state as chief guests and guests of honour. B.L. Joshi, the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, presented the SaMaPa Vitasta Awards, conferred on Girija Devi for music and Hema Malini for Bharatanatyam, and the Sher-e-Kashmir Sheikh Abdullah Award to Ghulam Hasan Soofi for Kashmiri Folk Music.
The Sangeet Sammelan held in three sessions featured a santoor recital by Abhay Rustam Sopori and a vocal recital by Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra on the inaugural evening. Theconcert started only after the elaborate award ceremony and a number of speeches. Abhay opened the Sammelan with raga Rageshri followed by Rageshri-Kauns. A gifted young artiste, Abhay failed to create the desired effect this evening due to his out-of-tune instrument that marred all his virtuosity and the improvements he has made in the santoor after much research. Although he had Dal Chand Sharma to accompany him on the pakhawaj and Vinod Lele from Varanasi on tabla, both ace players, things could not improve.
The lovely Bihagada by Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra did bring the Sammelan back on track, but it was much later, after another lengthy session of honouring quite a long row of musicians who had helped SaMaPa in "Aao Kadam Barhaein", that drove away most of the music lovers. There were few takers when Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra took the stage. Mahmood Dhaulpuri on the harmonium and Akram Khan did enhance their singing with their inspired accompaniment.
Tabla spectrum
The morning session next day presented young tabla players of different gharanas in Table Ke Baaj, a programme conceived and coordinated by Pandit Vijay Shankar Mishra. It was a rare opportunity for music lovers to savour the nuances of various styles and to know why the Dilli Baaj for instance has less of baayan ka kaam while the Ajrara gharana has more of it, or what is the Banaras ki uthhaan or baant. Apart from playing the peshkara, quayeda, rela, et al of their own specific styles, Hetal Mehata from the Benaras gharana, Akbar Latif from Dilli, Athar Hussain from Ajrara, Amit Verma from Lucknow, Aashish from Farrukhabad and Rajesh from the Punjab gharana played specialties like chaupalli paran before concluding with a chakkardar tihayi which started and ended with the emphatic Dha with superb synchronisation.
Vidushi Girija Devi was the special attraction of this session. She regaled the audience with her mesmerising music. Shrinivas Joshi, son of the legendary Kirana maestro Pandit Bhimsen Joshi opened the culminating session with Puria Dhanashri, but the treatment of the raga lacked the grammatical correctness to prove his authentic training, despite Pandit Jayram Potdar trying his best to help him out with prompting on the harmonium. In the next thumri Khamaj also, he just left out the laggi part towards the end where Rafiuddin Sabri could show his prowess on the tabla, and concluded his vocal recital with a Meera bhajan in raga Pilu.
Pandit Bhajan Sopori played raga Saraswati and Madhu-Kauns on the santoor next. The Sammelan concluded with a vibrant Kathak recital by Shovana Narayan.
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