One outstanding artiste can generate more excitement than a hundred good artistes. Or so it seemed at “Antharnaad”, an evening of classical music, featuring Kishori Amonkar, doyenne of ‘Atrauli-Jaipur Gayaki’ preceded by santoor maestro Satish Vyas at the Chowdaiah Memorial Hall on Sunday (August 19).
It’s after a long time that Kishori Amonkar is performing at a public concert in Bangalore, although she has performed for several private concerts.
So dedicated she is to her music that she did not want anything to come between her and her audience. She therefore asked the organisers to give the vote of thanks even before her concert began.
She began with raag ‘Bhoop’ or ‘Bhoopali’ (Mohana). The composition which she chose was her own, “Prathama Sura Saadhe” (in ‘vilambit teen taal’), exploring the depths of the raag of the pentatonic scale and finally winding up this early night raag with a ‘taraana’ in ‘ada teen taal’.
 She had a formidable team as accompanist comprising Nandini Bedekar and Sangeeta Katti on the taanpura, who also provided vocal support occasionally, Pradip Dixit on the tabla and Suyog Kundalkar on the harmonium. Milind Raikar on the violin replicated the singer’s forays note by note.
The septuagenerian's devotion was apparent in the rendering of “Shiv ke man sharan lo” in raag ‘Bhairavi’. Earlier, santoor maestro Satish Vyas, was back again once more in the City to entertain the audience with the mystic sounds on his santoor. Just about 10 days ago, he was in the city to perform at the Foundation Day and the musical conference of the Bangalore Gayana Samaj.
Twilight raaga
Vyas, a disciple of Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, began with a composition in raag ‘Purya Dhanashri’, a twilight raag, which he explored with ‘alaap’, ‘jhap taal’ and ‘drut teen tal’.
It was both meditative and therapeutic. You could close your eyes and feel the vibrations. He followed it up with a composition in raag ‘Hamsadhwani’, popular in the South.
He couldn’t ask for a better accompanist than Aditya Kalyanpur, a student of Ustad Allahrakha and now Ustad Zakir Hussain. His deft strokes on the tabla elicited thunderous applause from the audience.