Magic of the surbahar

Pandit Santosh Banerjee is a veteran surbahar player who can still extract tuneful melody out of this regal, almost extinct instrument. The frail old master performs very rarely now. Bhawanipur Sangeet Sammelani, a century old organisation of the city, presented an evening of soul-stirring instrumental music. Featured were young flautist Dipankar Mukherjee, talented sitarist Sahana Banerjee, and finally her father-guru Santosh Banerjee regaled the audience with dhrupad and dhamar on the surbahar in raga-s Bagesree and Kausi Dhwani.

30 years of guru-sishya parampara

The saga of the age-old oral tradition was retold by the ITC Sangeet Research Academy this year once again with the focus on its guru-s and their sishya-s, to celebrate its 30 years of glorious existence. Delightfully varied hues and tones of different vocal schools, represented by guru-s Ulhas Kashalkar, Ajoy Chakrabarty, Arun Bhaduri and Mashkoor Ali Khan, superbly supported by their disciples, were spread over the two-day long soiree. Veteran instrumentalist guru-s Buddhadev Dasgupta (sarod) and Manilal Nag (sitar) offered a rare jugalbandi.

The coveted ITC Award (Kolkata) went to Ustad Ali Ahmed Hussain Khan, an eminent shehnai exponent who carved a niche for himself despite the overwhelming presence of the late Ustad Bismillah Khan. The awardee and his entourage presented a sparkling shehnai recital later. Two of the Academy’s scholars Manali Bose (vocal) and Abir Hossain (sarod) gave impressive solo recitals as the opening items of each day. The only guest artist was Anindo Chatterjee who, supported by his disciple, played a thrilling tabla solo. The key note running through this melodic series was the bond between teacher and taught and of course the 'joint-family' kind of ambience.