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Melodic Journey Through The Indian Landscape

Press Release
04/14/2016

Melodic Journey Through the Indian Landscape

On April 9th, 2016, The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum reverberated with soulful Indian music, both classical and folk. As promised, the conversation on stage took the audience through a musical journey of India, exploring regional music and its relationship with the classical core. 

The concert began with a beautifully rendered Dhrupad by the Raaga Rang ensemble. As explained by Shekhar Shastri, the Creative Director of Raaga Rang, it was an offering to “Naada Brahma," the supreme entity present in all the vibrations that we perceive around us. 

The story of the journey was succinctly conveyed by Pallavi Nagesha, who guided the audience through Poorva, Uttara, Poorvanchal, Dakshin, and Paschim. 

The Eastern horizon glistened with the sounds of Malhar as Shekhar Shastri began the journey with a beautiful rendition of “Sun Mere Bandhu Re”, a Bhatyali genre song from the movie Sujata. Meesha Acharya then upped the ante with a soulful  Shyama Sangeet,  â€œaaj sajan mohe” from the film Pyasa. From there Dilip Acharya took us through the tea gardens of Assam with his Jhumoor and Shubhra Bhattacharya gave us a glimpse into the playful world of little girls in Bengal with “Sundari Komala”. Rangabati, a catchy Oriya folk song capped the excellent selection of songs from Eastern India. 

The journey moved on to the North with a rarely heard Dogri composition of Padma Sachdev. Shuchita Rao’s mellifluous voice added to the charm of “Khiri jobne De”. Moving down to the mountains of Himachal, the melody couple, Dilip and Meesha Acharya presented “Saiyan bina soona” in raag Pahadi. The journey then took us to Punjab with playful songs, one in the Heer genre and another Punjabi film song, both sung by Shubhra. The energy of the land of five rivers shone best through the Gidda “Ude jab jab zulfein teri” from the film Naya Daur, sung by Vijay Kumar and Meena Sundaram.

As we moved down from Punjab, the conversation took on a philosophical mantle. Lines of distinction between devotee and Lord, or between beloveds, seemed to erase until there was no sacred or profane. The segment began with a powerful rendition of “Chap tilak” a sufiana kalaam by Shekhar Shastri and Sankar Gangaikondan. Their voices seemed to invoke the poet and the lord into the house until one could not just feel a divine presence, but also feel Khusro breathing life into his composition. The surprise element of this segment was the introduction of a young and talented singer, Aditya Rohit. His Haveli Sangeet “Mora man mohiyo” in raag Brindaavani Saarang brought the house down. The depth of emotion and the range and control in his voice is superb. New England is blessed to have such talent and hopes to hear him more often.

We now entered Poorvanchal, the land of Banaras and Bihar. A timely and apt rendition of Chaiti began this segment. Sung by all the female voices of the ensemble, the sweet innocence of a young girl shone through “Juhi ke phulva”. This was followed by a poignant Bhojpuri composition “Hey Ganga mayya tohe”. In this song, the bride is finally going to her husband's home and is nervous about the impending Union. The journey is equated to the that of the river on its way to meet the ocean. It was also picked from first Bhojpuri film ever made. The toe-tapping highlight of Poorvanchal was Sankar Gangaikondan’s “Nain lad jaihe” from the movie “Ganga Jamuna”. This was followed by two popular dadra’s by Meena Sundaram, “Chahe to mora jiya” and “Najar laagi raaja tore bangle par”. Keeping the tempo up, the central east segment ended with selections from the movie Teesri Kasam. First Meesha Acharya sang the popular Nautanki “Paan khaye sayyan”, then the male voices of the ensemble joined in a rousing performance of “Chalat musaafir moh liya re”.

As we moved to the south, the Tabla and the Dholak were replaced by the Mridangam played by a young protegee, Kaasinath Balagurunath, and Morsingh played by Gaurishankar Chandrashekhar.

Uma Sankar opened the segment with a beautiful poem by Subramanya Bharati. Shuchita Rao, accompanied by her daughter Radha, sang the popular Kannada krithi, “Chandrachooda Shiva”. In a fun, musical performance, the three ladies joined voices to Muthuswamy Dikshitar’s Nottuswaram, and elicited audience participation. Dakshin, concluded with a lively Thillana in raag Dhanashree, composed by Maharaja Swathi Thirunal.

The final destination of the evening was in the West. Starting from the Pakistani side of the Rann of Kutch, Dilip and Meesha Acharya once again joined their voices to “Phool banro”. This was followed by a lively Goan tune from the popular film Bobby, “Gege  saiba”. Then, Aditya Rohit and Sankar Gangaikondan dazzled one and all with their Natya Sangeet, “Ghei chand makarand”. This musical duel form Katyar Kaaljaat Ghusali was in raag Salag-Varali followed by Raag Dhaani. 

A toe-tapping, heart-pumping garba-raas medley concluded the journey and the evening wound down just as it had begun, on a high note. Once again Raaga Rang raised the bar by bringing in folk tunes and excellent musical accompaniment to the plate. The star line up of singers were supported by 10 stellar musicians. With Hitesh Master from Chicago on the keyboard, Hiral Parikh on the drums, Sujeet Phanse on the flute, Dilip Acharya on the harmonium, Phil Scarff on the saxophone, Koushik Chakrabarty on tabla, Abhilash Mehta on the dholak, Phil Kaplan on the guitar, Anirudh Nagesha on the Bass guitar, Kaasinath Balagurunath on the Mridangam, and Gaurishankar Chandrashekhar on the dholak and Morsingh, the orchestra enhanced the vocals beautifully and sounded simply out of this world. 

We caught up with the audience after the show and here is what they had to say:

“What a mesmerizing journey, top classical music event.” - Shobha Shastry

“Amazing performance…. The pronunciations for the Garbo seemed so authentic.”  - Dinesh Tanna

“Regional melodies and live fusion music… were fabulous” - Valentino Almeida

“Deeply fullfilling evening.” - Brij Masand

“Amazing performance. The Banaras-Bihar segment took me back home.” - Ragini Pathak

We look forward to the 5th year of Raaga Rang and wish the team success!



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