Several styles on a platform

The ‘Sontakke Global Music Festival 2013’, which was inaugurated at the Alliance Francaise recently, has much in store for the music lovers. The festival is expected to bring together 100 performers from across the world with the venue for each of the performances being different. It will go on till December 25. The first of the nine-day music festival began with a classical music performance. Although varied in style, the soothing strains of each of the performers delighted the audience.

Singer Manasi Prasad, who performed the revagupti and kalyani ragas, said, “Since this is being held in the morning, I am singing in raga revagupti. I am glad that this festival is commencing with traditional classical music. It’s important to be in touch with our roots.”

The singer, who was accompanied by C Chelavaraj on mridangam and Mathur Srinidhi on violin, performed Birana Brona and Yadava Raya among others.

Musician Prakash Sontakke, who had organised the event, explained that this is the first time that they were putting together an event on such grand scale.

“We want to celebrate all genres of music on one platform. If we had just included a single style of music, we wouldn’t have been able to bring in different kinds of listeners,” said Prakash.

He added, “There has been a lot of co-ordination for the event. But a lot of the performers are my friends who were enthusiastic to take part. Hence, I did not have to go out of the way to have them on board.” The classical music was given a modern touch by Karthik Mani and Varun Pradeep on the drums and percussions and keyboard respectively. “We are making a mix of classical Hindustani compositions with western elements. I guess these days, modernisation is required to an extent to attract the younger crowd. We haven’t been able to practise much but we’re experienced enough to be able to pull off
a good performance,” said Karthik. 

The audience were seen tapping their feet to the ragas. Raghavendra, a member of the audience and a classical music enthusiast, said, “I am glad to see that in the recent past, there has been an increase in the number of classical music concerts. Now that I am retired, I have the time to attend these concerts. I see that there is an interesting mix of artistes and genres of music.”