Variety at its best

Teen Prahar, organised by Banyan Tree brought together a plethora of traditional Indian musical forms including classical, folk and mystic genre. They roped in artistes from across the country.

The concert began in the evening and was on till late night. People could choose the slots they wanted to listen to.

The evening had Ronu Majumdar on the flute perform with Jayanthi Kumaresh on the veena, the duo have been performing across the world but this was Jayanthi’s first concert in the City.

They performed Raga Saraswati. “It’s a praise to Goddess Saraswati. The piece talks about bhakti and contentment,” explains Ronu. He said that he’s played in Bangalore several times and every time he’s played here he’s been inspired to come back and play again.

The second piece, Ek Taal was set to twelve beats and the last piece Teen Taal had sixteen beats. “We practice in advance but some of the songs are played according to the audience’s response and request,” adds Ronu.  Anubrata Chatterjee is the leader of Taal India, a percussion ensemble of folk and classical drums from across India. There was a loud round of applause when Taal took centre stage. People had heard so much about how this unique ensemble fall in sync despite differences in percussion. Talking about how the band came together Anubrata explains, “We belong to different parts of the country and the language is a big problem for us. We communicate through gestures and eye contact is important. Most of our pieces are extempore. We start on a particular beat and the rest of the group catches up.” The instruments used in the band are tabla, Punjabi Dhol, Karthal and Dholak.

“We don’t play fusion music at all. It’s pure Indian classical music with a lot of on stage improvisation,” adds Anubrata.  Another performance by Rahul Sharma on the santoor and Bickram Ghosh was lively.

Those in the audience were happy that they were treated to an array of genres.
“It was a good mix of classical, contemporary and mystic music. I made sure I sat through all the performances to get a feel of the different genre of music,” says Anibhuti Bhandopadhya.

Sudha Raghavan, a Carnatic singer said, “I was happy that each of the singers was given an hour. At least they didn’t have to rush through. And there’s variety so there’s no chance of monotony creeping in,” she says.