Alam Khan lives up to his pedigree at Saptak

His performance was affected a little by the paucity of time he was given to play and that resulted in him having to hurry his rendition a bit.

Alam said this during his performance and the same problem was also expressed by another artist who took the stage after him. He started his performance with the traditional slow alaap in Jhijhoti,creating and unfolding the mood of sadness of the raga step by step. This first stage of the rendition is essential for getting into the contemplative and introspective mood and that is also a test of the steadiness and concentration of the artist.

It is here that Alam showed his potential by moving and touching the sequences of notes played in the standard way of his gharana. His alaap was followed by a short presentation of jod,which is the presentation of alaap in rhythmic note but without the accompaniment of the tabla. This was followed by a composition in madhya laya Teen taal ( sixteen beat cyclical rhythm in middle tempo),which was made all the more interesting by the accompanying tabla player Shri Anubrata Chaterjee,son and disciple of maestro Pandit Anindo Chaterjee.

Alam concluded Jhijhoti with a fast-paced composition and jhana. This was followed by a brief,but very melodious alaap and rhythmic rendition in raag Mishra Pilu. In all these parts of his performance,Alam showed the glimpses of what his great father has created,But he could not exhibit a full display of this in any part because of the severe time constraint.

Nevertheless,he definitely established his potential to carry forward the very high standard of music rooted in his gharana.

Vocalist Smt Viraj Amar presented Raag Jogkauns before Alam’s presentation and after him vocalist Ustad Shaukat Hussain Khan presented Raag Malkauns. The programme ended with a duet presentation by sitar artist Shujat Khan and Shashank Subramaniam on the flute who rendered Raag Charukeshi and were accompanied on the tabla by Pandit Kumar Bose and Shri Satish Kumar on the mridangam.