A youthful ensemble

The bandh on Saturday did not dampen the spirit of music lovers as many assembled at the Canara Union Hall, Malleswaram, to savour the ‘29th Devnandan Ubhayaker Yuva Sangeet Utsav’, organised by  Smriti Nandan.

The opening performance on the first day was a tabla presentation by Sangeet Piyasi of Kolkata, a 24-year-old institution that propagates Hindustani classical music.  The highlight was the eight players playing a tabla ensemble based on ‘Raga Kalawati’ without any instrumental accompaniment/ ‘nagma’. The performers were all students within the age of 16, the youngest one being eight. Jyotirmoy Chakrabarty,  Shalakya K Bhaduri, Rahul Roy, Nayanika Sengupta, Suprabhat Bhattacharya, Rudrajit Dey, Sayan Bhattacharya and Nabagata Bhattacharjee put up a spectacular show conducted by Shri Bivas Sanghai under the tutelage of Pt Samar Saha.

Expressing gratitude for being able to perform outside their city for the first time, the children said, “We got an enthusiastic audience and we feel blessed for the respect we received here.”

Following this was a vocal recital by 26-year-old Swyamduti Majumder, trained in the Kasur Patiala gharana style by Vidushi Sanjukta Ghosh.

The vocalist set the mood for the evening with a composition in ‘Raga Puriya Dhaneshri’, a soothing and spiritual evening ‘raga’, with a mix of slow and fast ‘taans’. She then mesmerised everyone with another composition in ‘Raga Hambir’. Connoisseurs looked impressed as Swyamduti crooned two celebrated thumris of her gharana- one in ‘Raga Kaushik Dhwani’ and the other in ‘Raga Bhairavi’. She also presented a folk song in ‘Raga Pahadi’ and ended with a wonderful ‘bhajan’.

On the second day, the festival started with the flute strains of teenage prodigy Dattatreya Mutalik Desai. He was accompanied by Sumit Naik on the tabla.

A student of Praveen Godkhindi, Dattatreya’s tutelage and solid grounding in Indian classical music shone through his  repertoire. He started his performance with a song from raag ‘Nat Bhairav’. The ‘aalap’ moved on to a cheerful ‘swara’ and ended with high-octave staccatos. The coordination between the percussion and the wind instruments was in sync. He also rendered raag ‘Brindavana Saaranga’ in ‘teen taal’ and the concert concluded with a ‘Dhrupad jugalbandi’ recital by Sagar Morankar and Prasanna Vishwanathan where the singers delved deeply into every note and provided a refreshing experience.