Sitar recital at Strawberry Fields

SD Sharma
Chandigarh, October 9

The Chandigarh chapter of The Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth (SPICMACAY) organised an educative, edifying and enthralling sitar recital and interaction by world renowned sitar wizard Ustad Nishat Khan at the Newton auditorium of Strawberry Fields High School here on Tuesday.

Impressed with the music-friendly school environment and inquisitive tendency of prodigious students, the Ustad shared that in modern India, music remained a progressive and dynamic art and its aesthetic appeal and beauty attracted everyone.

He explained the swaras, sargam, bol, aakar tans and formation of ragas, concept of melody, significance of rhythm in sculpting a composition or a song in a particular raga with an example of raga ‘khamaj’ and later raga ‘bilwal’.

Supported by Ustad Rashid Mustafa on the table, he bared the melody of morning raga ‘shudh aarang’ displaying its components like the alaap, vilambat and drut gats and also the ‘tal’ which gives a regular, ordered feeling to music, he added.

On students’ request, Ustad explained ‘improvisation’, the most distinctive character of the Indian classical music as also the concept of the ‘fusion’ music.

To another enquiry, Ustad explained about ‘gharana’ as a school of performing art and shared that he being the direct descendent of the celestial Ustad Tansen, represents the seventh generation of the senia gharana legacy.

School director Atul Khanna honoured the artistes.

Pangs of Partition relived

The poignant pangs of Partition-1947 were relived in a Punjabi play ‘Yatra -1947’ presented by the Manch Rangmanch ensemble Amritsar on the second-day of the ongoing Punjabi Theatre festival organised by the Chandigarh Sangeet Natak Akademi here on Tuesday.

Play director Kewal Dhaliwal, an alumnus of the NSD and recipient of the Punjab Shiromani Natak Kar Samman, evolved the play-based poetry of about 40 poets from India and Pakistan, who had articulated the anguish and pain of the people.

The play eloquently depicted the trauma of forced debasement and destabilisation. Both Rajinder Singh and Lakhwinder Singh rendered the verses with emotional expression.

Chief guests Harjinder Kaur and Kamal Arora honoured the artistes.